


Under The Same Sky

by fish-with-a-pencil (DeadFeesh24)



Series: League of Realms AU [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts, Naruto
Genre: Gen, Gratuitous Japanese, In which Kairi and Sakura get the character development they deserve, In which Kairi singlehandedly kicks ass, Kairi-centric, League of Realms AU, Multi, Worldbuilding, but not too gratuitous I promise, crossover fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2018-06-07 21:25:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6824926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeadFeesh24/pseuds/fish-with-a-pencil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Otherwise known as the fic where Kairi teaches Sakura to be badass.)</p><p>When Kairi falls through a dark corridor during a training accident, she ends up in a strange, far away world.  Without her team and without a way to go home, Kairi makes the best of her situation and integrates herself into the Village Hidden in the Leaves.</p><p>A highly re-imagined AU where my favorite girls are treated like well rounded human beans</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Land of Fire: Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> So, I didn't imagine this would be my first fic. I thought maybe one day I'd post something short and say "there! I'm a real fanfic writer now!" and then call it a day. I have a shit ton of unfinished works, but this concept was always my favorite.
> 
> A little background, since I don't know when I'll get to work it into the actual fic:
> 
> This AU is essentially Kingdom Hearts + anime, and although this one is pretty much Naruto centric, I'll probably do some stuff with other anime that I really like *cough-utena-cough*. I've tried to make this world a lot more cohesive. Instead of the worlds being mostly disconnected, many worlds are united under the League of Realms.
> 
> This is all unbeta'd, because I'm an impatient dork.
> 
> The League of Realms does a lot of things (like a multiversal UN, with just as much paperwork) but it mostly trains Keybearers to protect all the worlds from heartless and to uphold the law, etc etc etc. All of the worlds from Kingdom Hearts are league protected worlds, which means that many keybearers live there, and they operate under League law.
> 
> Anyhow, that's enough infodumping for now. I hope you enjoy. :)

Before she even opened her eyes, Kairi knew she was in another world.  She could feel the heart of the world beneath her back, a thunderous, pulsing roar.  It was nothing like the smooth clockwork of the Land of Departure, or any other league world for that matter.  Wherever she was, it was very far from home.

 

The sun was hot on her face, and she covered her eyes with her hand before she opened them.  All around her were tall, broad leafed trees, an old growth forest where the gaps between the leaves were like canyons, spilling bright sunlight onto the forest floor.  Despite the sunlight burning her cheeks, Kairi still got chills when a stiff breeze blew past.

 

She pressed her palms to her eyes, hoping to soothe the pounding headache behind them.  It was partially from the sun, but a good portion of her suffering was courtesy of dark travel.

 

No wonder Riku didn’t like using dark corridors; they weren’t a pleasant trip at all.  Residual darkness crawled over her skin, and no amount of shaking her arms would shoo it away.  But the darkness wasn’t even the worst of her problems.  The hollow feeling in her bones could only mean one thing: she was out of magic.

 

Was there protocol for being stranded on a non-league world with no magic or way to get back?  Probably not.  Or at least, not protocols that young trainees would need to know.  They weren’t supposed to be going off world unsupervised to begin with.  

 

Leave it to her team to have the most outlandish training accident in existence.

 

The League of Realms would find her eventually, she reasoned.  All she needed to do was survive until then.  Still easier said than done, but at least it was a plan.

 

Kairi got up, but she was too weakened to stay up for long.  After a few seconds of wobbling on her feet, she propped herself up at the base of a nearby tree and sat down.  For a few moments, the world spun around her.  She could hear voices, not too far away, and she just had to hope that they weren’t dangerous.

 

“Help!”  She called.  “I can’t move!”

 

To her relief, some kids her own age came running over: a brown haired boy, and black haired girl.  The boy had a scar that ran cleanly across the bridge of his nose--it was completely darkened, like it had been there for years.

 

“Are you okay?”  The boy asked, leaning down to her eye level.

 

“She called for help, of course she’s not okay, Iruka,” the girl responded.  Her eyes were bright red, which was made all the more unnerving by the way she stared at Kairi.  

 

The boy, Iruka, she assumed, glared at the girl.  “I was just being polite,” he turned back to Kairi, “what seems to be the problem?”

 

Kairi struggled to find a good excuse.  She couldn’t just say she was from another world--that was the very first lesson the League drilled into her as a trainee: unless you’re on a League world, don’t reveal where you’re from.

 

“I can’t get up.  Whenever I stand, my legs start shaking and I get dizzy.  I don’t know where I am or how I got here...”  Iruka looked like he believed her line about being lost, but the girl, bloodred eyes still boring into her, didn’t look convinced at all.

 

The girl’s voice was sardonic, “oh really.  You must’ve had a rough time, miss…”

 

“Ueda.  Ueda Kairi.  And I have.”  Not a lie at all, really.

 

“Where are you from, then?”

 

Kairi settled on the closest thing to the truth.  “A land incredibly far from here.”

 

The girl’s gaze got sharper, and she drew herself up, as if she wasn’t incredibly intimidating already.  Kairi tried to make herself look harmless, but she was already too weak to stand, leaning against a tree.

 

“Iruka, go get Mihaya-sensei and Kaito.”  

 

“Suzume, is that really necessary?”  

 

“Just go get them.”

 

Iruka looked from Suzume to Kairi and back, his brow furrowed.  He looked almost apologetic when he ran away, to get whoever it was Suzume was talking about.

 

“I can promise you that I’m not going to hurt anyone,” Kairi offered, “if that eases your worries at all.”

 

Suzume frowned.  “I’d be able to tell if you were lying.  Unless you’re some sort of master at manipulation.  Other villages really do start that young…”  Her face hardened again.

 

“So, Ueda-san, where are you from?”

 

“Somewhere incredibly far away.  I can’t give you any specifics.”  She had no idea if she was wearing Suzume down, but it seemed best to just keep telling the truth.  As much as she could, that is.  “I’m here on accident.  All I want to do is go home.”

 

“How did you get so far from home?”

 

“Like I said, it was an accident.”  An errant clump of darkness wiggled its way down her spine, and she shivered.  “A training accident of sorts.”

 

Suzume suddenly turned, her black hair twirling around her in a perfect circle.  For a moment, Kairi strained to see what she was looking at, but it was clear soon enough.  Iruka had returned, with a woman, and another boy in tow.  All of them, including Suzume were wearing metal plaques with a stylized leaf carved into it; Iruka’s was on a headband, Suzume’s was tied to her upper arm, the other boy wore his around his neck, and the woman was wearing hers like a belt.  

 

“What’s that metal thing you’re all wearing?”

 

Suzume answered without turning her head much, “it’s the symbol of our village.  It shows that we’re all shinobi.  You really are from far away, if you don’t know what these are.”  As the group approached, Suzume gave a little wave.

 

“You better not’ve hurt her,” yelled Iruka.  He was a little pink in the face, though not from exertion.

 

“I didn’t lay a finger on her,” Suzume grumbled back.

 

“I can attest to that,” Kairi added.  She got a glare from Suzume in response.  “Hey, I’m being nice here!”

 

Within moments, the rest of them were nearby.  Suzume moved away to make room for the woman, their sensei, if Kairi were to hazard a guess, to inspect her.  The woman’s face was sharp, with piercing blue eyes and high cheekbones.  Her gaze was even worse than Suzume’s.

 

“Having your sharingan on right now is a waste, Suzume,” the woman scolded.

 

“We have no idea who she is or what she wants!  I just wanted to see if she was a threat.”

 

The woman sighed.  “What’s your name, girl?”

 

“Ueda Kairi.”

 

“Where are you from?”

 

“I already asked her that, sensei,” said Suzume. Her sensei glared at her, and she shrank.

 

“I’m from a place that’s incredibly far away.  I’m not allowed to give any of you specifics.”

 

“If you don’t tell me, someone else will get it out of you.”  The worry on the Mihaya’s face was clear.

 

“I really wish I could.  But I’d be in huge trouble if I did, and I doubt you’d believe me in the first place.”

 

Mihaya gave a solemn nod.  “Alright.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

 

“I appreciate it.”  Kairi tried to sound sincere, but the edges of her vision were starting to go white, and she felt like she was underwater.

 

“Hey, Kairi, try to stay with me, okay?”

 

Her vision swimming, Kairi nodded.

  
Then, she passed out.

 

 

_ An hour ago _

 

_ Kairi swallowed down more ether, ignoring the way it burned her empty stomach.   This always happened at the end of a day of magic training--even as her own capacity for magic got bigger, it would never match the sheer volume of spells she produced during training. _

 

_ “You ready?”  Riku asked.  He had already summoned his keyblade, but he was still relaxed. _

 

_ Kairi groaned. _

 

_ “Shut up, Kairi,” Sora yelled from the sidelines, “you won the last three matches!” _

 

_ “What can I say,” Kairi said, summoning her keyblade, “being a winner is hard work!” _

 

_ Riku got into an offensive stance, his shoulders low, and Kairi matched him.  Sora got into position as an officiator between them. _

 

_ “Alrighty then.  This will be a five minute match.  No summons, no form transformations.  Magic and dark powers are fair game.  On my mark…” _

 

_ Riku sunk deeper into his stance, and Kairi into hers.  She had a record to defend; there was no way she was losing easily. _

 

_ “Go!”  Sora leapt back as Riku made the first move.  He threw a barrage of dark energy her way, and Kairi quickly casted reflect.  It wasn’t strong enough to give Riku a taste of his own medicine, but it was certainly enough to keep Kairi from getting hit. _

 

_ Kairi ran at him, hurling firas to keep him on his toes.  He dodged, and leapt at Kairi, and she barely managed to block his strike.  Riku kept going, pushing Kairi further and further back. _

 

_ She was holding up well, but she’d need a boost if she was going to turn this around.  Between hits, Kairi cast reflect again, and Riku’s hit bounced off, knocking him to the ground.  Before Kairi could do anything else, he threw up a dark shield, and jumped to his feet. _

 

_ “You’re good at covering your ass,” Kairi said, grinning. _

 

_ “If I didn’t, I’d be toast by now.”  He was smiling too, just a little.  “It seems you could use a little practice at covering your own though.”  Riku looked at her leg, smug--he managed to wrap a strand of darkness around her ankle.  Kairi was pulled to the ground with a yelp. _

 

_ “Dammit!”  She twisted, but the darkness’ grip was firm.  Leaning back, she took aim at him and loosed a blizzard spell at his chest.  He flew backward with the impact, but the darkness didn’t release her.  As he hit the ground, the darkness expanded around him like a pool, reaching for Kairi again. _

 

_ “Kairi, watch out!”  Riku scrambled up to grab her, but the darkness held him down until he was waist deep in it.  It was crawling up her legs too, her chest, arching over her head and eyes, swallowing her down.  The more she struggled, the more exhausted she got, and as the blackness swallowed her completely, she let herself be still.  There was no use in tiring herself out. _

 

_ Her teammates would get her out... _

 

_ They always came through in the end. _

  
_ Right? _


	2. Rude Awakenings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kairi wakes up in a strange city with only the boy who found her for company. Riku frets like the mother hen he is inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, just a reminder that this chapter is super unbeta'd, and a good portion of the end was written buzzed. I might go over it and fix things later, but I'd rather just post stuff for now. Enjoy!

Kairi was getting tired of waking up in unfamiliar places.  Being in a real bed, however, was a pleasant surprise.

Even if it was a hospital bed.

Kairi took stock of herself: there was an IV in her left arm, but she was really no worse for wear.  The darkness had dissipated, her mana was painfully low, and she was hungry, but all and all, she wasn’t in danger of starving or overexerting herself.  Finished with her internal checks, she opened her eyes.

Bright shafts of afternoon light came in through the window, and the same cool breeze from earlier blew in from where the top of the window was cracked.  The bottom seemed to be locked tight, to prevent her escape.  Everything felt clean, from the little dresser across from her to the sheets she was lying on (still in her grubby training clothes).  

It was a well kept hospital, despite a sizeable crack in the ceiling and peeling paint.

“Oh!  You’re awake!”

She turned her head stiffly; the boy from earlier was sitting at her bedside, reading some sort of scroll.  His headband was around his neck, and his hair was down, but he was still in the same clothes that she saw him in last.  Fighting clothes, from the looks of them.  Still, he seemed oddly nice for someone in the military.

Kairi grunted, her throat too parched to really talk.

“Here, I thought you might be thirsty.” The boy, Iruka, wasn’t it, handed her a plastic cup with a straw sticking out.  She sipped carefully, but it was just water.  “IV’s help with dehydration, but they never do anything for a dry throat.”

“Thanks.”  Her voice was still hoarse.  “So, can you tell me where I am, or is that classified?”  Kairi didn’t want to get the kid in hot water, especially if she was a prisoner now.

Iruka’s face scrunched up in thought.  “I don’t think it’s classified…  We brought you to the hospital once you passed out.  Central Intelligence wants to talk to you, do a risk assessment and stuff, but Mihaya-sensei made sure you got medical attention first.”

Central Intelligence?  That didn’t sound too pleasant, but it was nice of them to treat their prisoners first.

“Hey,” Kairi asked, “Do you believe that I’m dangerous?”  Without meaning to, she stared him down; Iruka squirmed under her gaze.

“Well, we’re taught at the academy that enemy ninja can be all sorts of cunning, but you look like you’re my age.  And if you were lying, Suzume would’ve seen it.  I don’t think I trust you, but I also don’t distrust you either.” 

Iruka wasn’t nearly as thoughtless as his kind face would lead one to believe. 

“Wise decision.  I’m definitely not here to hurt anyone, and I hope that time will prove it, but it’s nice to know you’ve got a brain up there.  I’ve seen too many mindless soldiers in the Land--” Kairi cut herself off, then quickly corrected herself, “where I’m from.”

“Are you a shinobi?”  

Kairi frowned, thinking.  She knew shinobi was some kind of military force in other worlds, but she wasn’t sure how much truth was too much, nor how similar the League of Realms were to their ‘shinobi’, or if ‘shinobi’ meant military here in the first place...  

“I don’t really know if what I am translates well to your military structure.  See, where I’m from, you have normal soldiers, and then you have people like me, who are trained harder, with custom weapons.  I’m taught stuff that has less to do with fighting and more to do with peace.”

For a moment, Iruka didn’t say anything, he just nodded.  “I think I’d get my ass chewed if I told you anything before Intel comes to make sure you’re not here to kill us all…”

“Fair enough.”  Kairi took another sip of water as an awkward silence bloomed between them.  “So…  How long was I out for?”

“Not too long.  Let’s see, we got here around noon, and it’s only three now…”

A few hours lost wasn’t awful.  If anything, it was a few hours closer to when the League would find a way to pick her up.  “What was wrong with me?”

“You were dehydrated, and your chakra was pretty low.  Not enough to do any real damage, but definitely enough to knock you out.”

“What’s chakra?”  Was it like mana?  Did the residents of this world use magic often?

“What?”  Iruka stared at her, eyebrows raised.  “How can you not know what chakra is yet have used up enough to pass out?  It’s not like you would have it if you didn’t train.  That’s how we knew you were shinobi--or something like it, anyway.”

“I think I have a different name for it…”  

Perhaps mana and ‘chakra’ were the same thing.  If it was something you had to train for, and could kill you if you fully drained yourself of it, then it could very well be the case...  

Before Kairi had time to ponder it further, a man walked into the hospital room.  He was wearing a white mask, with the features of a hound carved into it.  Red lines outlined the eyeholes, but Kairi couldn’t make out his eyes at all.  Something about him sent chills up her spine, and, judging by the look on his suddenly pale face, Iruka was similarly unnerved.  

“I  _ really _ hope you’re telling the truth about being friendly, for your sake,” Iruka murmured, still staring at the man.

“Ueda Kairi?”  Said the man.  She tried to picture the face behind the mask by the sound of his voice alone, but it was too indistinct to make even the wildest guess.

“Yeah?”  Her voice cracked.

“Follow me.”  He headed outside, and Kairi did her best to follow. The IV stand creaked in time with her steps, echoing down the empty hall.   Aside from a single nurse (who looked on blandly as they passed by), it was completely desolate.

Her companion didn’t seem very talkative, so she looked toward the windows instead.

Everything she could see was dwarfed by a cliff, which had to be twice as tall as the nearest building, at least.  Four solemn faces were roughly carved into the rust colored rock, watching over the city with a blank gaze.  It was large city, and an old one at that.  It seemed to grow organically from a single point, wide, instead of tall, with the tallest buildings being four stories at the most, with wires tangling between the white, concrete structures.  Likely designed with Iruka’s “shinobi” in mind, the spaces between buildings were small enough to make excellent hiding spots, with plenty of footholds for rooftop access.

Far below the row of windows was a dirt road, also rather empty, save for a trickle of foot traffic.  There were a few storefronts, but the line of concrete buildings looked mostly residential.  It was hard to tell where the street ended and the side of the road began, seeing as they were both dirt, not that it mattered.  She didn’t see any place to tie up a horse, so perhaps the roads only saw foot traffic to begin with.

It was entirely unfamiliar.  Kairi couldn’t pick out a single landmark that gave away her location.  Wherever she was, it was far from League territory.

“This way,” called the man.  The door he was holding open lead into a dark room; the windows were covered with cloth, and the only light was a small lamp on the table in the middle of it.  Another man, a fierce looking brute with two long scars bisecting his face, was sitting at the table, facing the door.

“Sit down,” instructed the fierce man.  As she obeyed, he asked, “do you know why you’re here?”

“Because I might pose a threat to your home?”

“The wards around the village detected you without any warning whatsoever, followed by a massive surge of power.  We’ve seen many enemies before, but nothing quite like you,” said the man.  His eyes were dark with unseen terrors, but Kairi forced herself to look him in the eye.  It wouldn’t do her any good to look like a liar now.

“My word probably means nothing to you, but I’m not a threat.  I just want to go home.”  She felt incredibly small.

The man made a noise between a snort and a chuckle, but did not break his gaze.  “You’re right, your word is worthless to me.  Where is home, for you?”

_ Too far to even fathom,  _ she thought,  _ and my first home is long gone now.   _ “There’s only so much I can tell you.  I’d get in a lot of trouble if I told you, more trouble than you can even imagine…”

His stare pressed down on her with the weight of a thousand mountains; Kairi felt like squirming, but doing so might bring on certain death, so she remained still.

“You wouldn’t even believe me!”

The man’s expression didn’t change.  “Try me.”

Breaking her oath as a keybearer was bad, but she wasn’t trained to withstand torture.  And if (no--when, she insisted to herself) the League came, the existence of other worlds would be revealed anyway…  Kairi took a deep breath.  

“I’m from another world.”

There was a moment of silence, and then the man laughed; he clutched his stomach and practically roared, shaking the table slightly.  Kairi tried not to look too terrified, but only managed to put a sour look on her face.

“You’re—” the man sucked in a breath, then let out a sound uncharacteristically like a giggle— “serious, aren’t you?  God, the higher ups were scared about a little kid?  You’re nuts, but even I can tell you’re not dangerous!”

“I’m not crazy!”  Kairi felt herself flush.  “I can prove it!”

“Oh really?”

Before she could overthink all the reasons why this was a terrible idea, Kairi summoned her keyblade.

 

* * *

 

“Well, your chakra is still low,” the nurse told her, “but you’re no longer dehydrated, and everything else checks out.  If anything feels strange or hurt though, don’t hesitate to come back, okay?”

“Y-yeah, I’ll do that.  Well, hopefully I won’t have to, but if it happens,” she shrugged.

“I doubt you’ll have to, kid.”  The nurse ruffled Kairi’s hair.  “I’ll go get your discharge papers, and then you can go free.”

It didn’t take long for the nurse to return with a clipboard and pen.  He was kind enough to outline where to sign and explain what the packet for her to bring home was (some general information about dehydration and chakra depletion, complete with the hospital’s emergency line, just in case) and within the hour, Kairi made her way to the entrance.

In the waiting room, the sunset painted golden bars across the dull, linoleum floor.  The air was eerily still (and painfully dry, Kairi noted as she licked her chapped lips); for the most part, the emergency waiting room was dead empty.  There was one bored looking nurse at the front desk in danger of falling asleep, and a few drowsy looking patients.  Kairi could empathize; she felt like nodding off right on her feet.

Not that it mattered, seeing as she didn’t have anywhere to go.  Perhaps there was a park somewhere where she could crash for a while…

“Ah!  Ueda-san!”  Iruka was waiting right by the door, waving her over.  “I’m glad you weren’t lying.  If I had to wait much longer, I’d get caught in the evening rush for dinner…”

Kairi jumped.  She wasn’t expecting anyone to wait for her (except maybe the masked man, if they had more questions), not that it was an unpleasant surprise.  Iruka didn’t seem particularly threatening, in the very least, and she could definitely use a guide around this new world.

“You didn’t have to wait for me,” she replied blandly.

“I didn’t?”  Iruka gazed at her, trying to look innocent.  “I guess I’ll just go then…”

Before he could so much as move, Kairi had grabbed his sleeve.  “Wait!  I didn’t mean it—”

“Don’t worry.” Iruka ruffled her hair. “I was just kidding.  I’m not about to leave you high and dry, that would be... cruel.”

A forlorn look passed over Iruka’s face, made clear by the stark shadows cast by the setting sun.  He looked straight through her, but not in a piercing way; it was as if there was something directly behind her.  Kairi knew that look well.  She had seen the hollow eyed gaze on soldiers and keybearers alike, coming home from an assignment gone wrong.

She had worn that gaze herself once, though she hesitated to think about it.

Kairi waved a hand in front of his face.  “You okay?”

“Huh?”  He focuses back on her, but the shadows remain in his eyes.  Whatever happened to him wasn't going to release its grip soon.

“Dinner?”  It was better not to bring attention to his troubles, Kairi decided.  She was a stranger after all; prying wouldn't get her anywhere.

“Right!  I've got the perfect place to start off the weekend…”

 

* * *

 

As the sun set on the Land of Departure, Riku had managed to work himself into a good and proper panic, and Sora wasn’t all that far behind.  They walked through the quiet halls of the West Moon dorm at a brisk pace, too fretful to tell any of their yearmates that they had arrived home for the night.  

Most nights, they wouldn’t be anywhere remotely close to the isolated boy’s dorm before curfew, or after it, to be completely candid; the two spent almost all their time hiding out in Kairi’s single dorm, sharing snacks stolen from the kitchen late into the night.  They used to sleep on the floor, all three of them snuggled together like puppies, but then the League started doing room checks, and Riku and Sora were forced to go back to their own dorm like the rest of their class.

Now, they had no reason to head over to the North Sun dorm, arms laden with fruit and cheese and bread (and occasionally chocolate, when needed).  Without Kairi, the boys were floundering.  Arms empty and hearts hollow, they hurried back to their own dorm and locked the door as quietly as they could.  The rumors would spread soon enough, and then their yearmates would be clawing at their door for even a hint of gossip.

Until then, they’d draw out their solitude.

“I-I can’t believe I did that…”  Riku murmured hoarsely.  He had spent all afternoon explaining the accident to various League officials, and between that and begging them to find Kairi, his voice had taken a hit.

“Riku…”

“How could I have been so stupid?  I just grabbed her with dark energy like it was nothing—” Riku grabbed at his hair, ripping at his ponytail violently; he didn’t seem to notice when several clumps came out with the elastic — “and look where it got me!  She’s gone!  I can’t believe—”

Sora pressed his hands over Riku’s mouth.  “Riku, it’s okay.”

Riku made a noise of protest, but Sora didn’t budge or move his hands.

“Listen to me for a sec,” Sora said softly, “it was an accident.  It’s not like you’ve lost control like this before.  We were both caught off guard.  I know that you’re worried about her and you feel like it was all your fault, but we both know that if you could’ve prevented it, you would’ve.  We’d both give our hearts to have her back right now, and I know it hurts, but if anyone can survive weird accidents, it’s Kairi.”

He pressed his forehead against Riku’s, moving his hand off Riku’s mouth to comb through his soft hair.  The touch reminded him of Kairi; soothing and heartbreaking all at once.  She used to braid Riku’s hair every night before bed, despite his protests that he was perfectly capable of doing it himself.  He’d grumble and whine, but the moment Kairi got her hands on him, he melted.

“I just can’t believe she’s gone…”

“I know.  I miss her too,” Sora said, “but all we can do right now is wait.  At least, I know for certain that she’s okay.  I can feel it.”   
“Yeah, I can too,” with a sigh, Riku wrapped Sora up in a tight hug.  There was no doubt in his mind that Kairi was out there, surviving like only she could do.


	3. Baby Steps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kairi starts to settle into life in Konoha with Iruka's help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo boy, I wish I could update faster on this fucker, but between editing my outline for this fic, writing Stammi Vicino and homework, I've been swamped. And I was in a play last weekend to boot. I really want to give this fic my best (aside from beta-reading, seeing as I don't have a reader and I don't want to keep y'all waiting any longer), so I'm putting less pressure on updating this one. 
> 
> Especially for the storyline; I want the plot to be cohesive and clean, which means more planning on my end.
> 
> Anyhow, enjoy!

The days that followed Kairi’s arrival weren’t nearly as tumultuous as she expected.

Although her guess regarding rumors in this town (they traveled fast and without regard for any kind of tact or secrecy) was dead-on correct, she wasn’t bothered much by the townspeople, aside from knowing stares wherever she went.  Nobody swarmed her or asked any questions, nor followed her around, but Kairi knew that everywhere she went, someone was whispering that they had seen the mysterious red-haired girl.

After spending two days on a futon in Iruka’s living room, Kairi was getting antsy.  It wasn’t that Iruka was hard to live with, or that he made her feel unwelcome, but Kari couldn’t help but feel like an intruder.  She was already a trespasser in another world, mooching off Iruka only made her feel worse, especially with how kind Iruka continued to be.

So, on her third day of exploring Konoha, Kairi started searching for work.

Menial work, according to Iruka, was only for young shinobi (who, from Kairi's limited view, seemed roughly equivalent to a keybearer in training and social status), fresh out of the academy.  Fetching kittens out of trees and weeding gardens was apparently a humiliating rite of passage for the young soldiers.  That left Kairi with limited options, seeing as pure physical strength was pretty much her only employable trait.

She scoured the town for any openings for work, but everyone turned her away, claiming that all sorts of hokey things.  One shop owner had the audacity to claim that he wasn't looking for help while he posted a 'Help Wanted’ sign in the window.  That had been early in the morning however, and Kairi still had a good stock of naive hope left in her.

The same thing couldn't be said of her in the afternoon, when Kairi stumbled wearily into a dusty bookstore situated a few blocks from the academy.

It didn't even have a help wanted sign in the window, but after being turned away all day, Kairi couldn't have cared less.

“Hello?” Kairi called.  There were a string of bells tied to the front door that rung dully when she entered; they were covered in dust.

Correction: _everything_ was covered in dust.

Dust motes swam near the windows, creating shafts of sunlight that were more translucent than clear.  Dust blanketed the highest shelves so thick they looked like rain clouds, and even the lower, more accessible shelves had their fair share of dust; only a few racks of trashy pulp fiction near the entrance were exempt from the deluge of grime.

She took a few steps inside, if only to avoid the cardboard cutout of a scantily clad woman staring at her.  “Anyone in here?”

The soft wood floor creaked as a woman stepped out from between the shelves.  “What do you wan—” the woman’s eyes widen in recognition and her previous thought ends— “you’re the girl…”

Kairi waved bashfully.

“I’m assuming you’re here for a job,” she said.

“Guilty, I guess...”  Kairi replied.  The woman walked further into the store, not saying a word.  “Rumors really travel fast here…”

“Yeah.”  Apparently, she wasn’t much for small talk.

At the back wall, a single register (also covered in a light coat of dust) sat on an old metal desk.  The desk itself was piled with binders and colorful folders, which the woman shoved onto the floor so she could sit on the desk, instead of the perfectly serviceable chair behind it.

“So, kid, I’m Aihara Yuu, the owner.  Consider this your interview.  Your name?”

“Ueda Kairi.”

Yuu nodded.  “Age?”

“Sixteen, Ma’am.”

“And you’re not shinobi…  How strange.”

“Well, that’s not quite accurate.  Where I’m from, I think we call shinobi something else, and I _was_ that.”

Yuu raised a brow; that would probably make good gossip.  “I see.  So, I’ve got one more question for you.  Why do you deserve to work at Konoha Booksellers?”

She didn’t.  Kairi wasn’t qualified for something like this, and she certainly wasn’t the best choice for something like a bookstore.  Maybe a grocery, where she could use her strength to haul bags of rice, or maybe a carpentry job that was equally physically demanding, but a bookstore?  Kairi hadn’t the slightest idea of what to do.  She was lost.

“I…”  Yuu watched her expectantly.  

Kairi continued, “I don’t.  I’m not qualified, and I don’t know the first thing about bookstores; actually to be completely honest I hate reading like a cat hates water.  All I know is that I got here a few days ago, and this guy has been really kind and is letting me crash on his spare futon, and he’s been buying me food—” Kairi ran a frustrated hand through her hair— “and there are only so many times you can clean someone’s apartment before there’s nothing left to do.  And sure, Iruka’s nice and all, but let’s be honest: he’s a _guy_ , and I have a feeling I’m gonna get sick of him loooong before he gets sick of me.  I know he doesn’t have the heart to kick me out, but I can’t just keep mooching off of hi-”

“You’re hired,” Yuu interjected.

“-m forever!  Wait, what?”

“You got the job, congrats.”

She did it?  That was it?  Relief flooded her system.  There was still so much to do, but this little triumph was enough for now.  Kairi immediately threw herself at Yuu for a hug.  “Thank you, thank you, thank you!  You’re the best Aihara-san!”

“Ok, ok, that’s enough.  Can you start tomorrow?”

Kairi unlatched herself from her new boss.  “Yes ma’am!”

“Good.  We open at nine, so get here by eight-thirty.”

 

* * *

 

They waited until the weekend, when Iruka had off work, to start searching for apartments.  Kairi didn’t need much, but her pay limited her to the shoddiest apartments near the center of the city.  Kairi had arranged this meeting herself, instead of Iruka dragging her to another overpriced one-bedroom in a nicer neighborhood.

“Really Kairi, you can stay with me, there’s no reason to live in a dump like this,” Iruka whispered, trying not to insult the burly looking landlord in front of them.

The building was old; nearly ancient, actually.  It was rather large for the area, five stories tall with something like ten units per floor, if she was counting properly, and all of the units had balconies.  Everyone had balconies around here, which was kind of perplexing to Kairi, seeing as she was used to them being luxury items back at home.

“Iruka, it’s fine.”

They followed the landlord inside.  The entryway had no windows and was dimly lit with bare lightbulbs dangling from the ceiling, which didn’t do much for Kairi’s cause.  She tried not to let her unease show.

“The mailboxes are to your left.  Try not to receive packages when you’re not around, because you might not ever get it.”

“Oh, well that’s good to know,” Iruka remarked brightly.  He had no idea if the landlord was actually dangerous, but he looked terrifying, and wasn’t about to take any chances.  

Kairi gave him a weak smile.   _Maybe it’s just a rough start,_ she tried to say without words.

Iruka glared back at her.   _You’re not fooling anyone._

 _Oh come on,_ she glared back, frowning a little, _you’re just paranoid._

 _For good reason!_  Iruka’s glare got darker.

“Are you two going to keep making weird faces all day?  Because I have better things to do then babysit you two knuckleheads.”

“Ah sorry…  Please lead the way.”

“Management doesn’t pay me nearly enough for this,” the landlord growled under his breath.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that,” Kairi said.

The landlord marches to the stairwell.  “This way.”

The apartment in question was on the fifth floor, up a precarious set of stairs so rusty that it was a miracle they were still functional at all.

Iruka looked a little pale when they reached the top.  “Are you sure about this?”

“Five flights of stairs is nothing for me,” Kairi snapped, insulted.

“Not exactly what I meant, Kairi.”

Nothing awaited them at the top of the stairs except another dim hall, quiet as death.  It was still impossible to tell if the place was clean or dirty, but it did smell of bleach.  The landlord lead the way to the very end of the hall.

“This is the one,” the landlord interrupted, “unit five-fifteen.”

Kairi entered first, slipping her boots off in the entryway before padding her way into the main room.

The main living space was surprisingly clean.  Everything was outdated, but the tatami mats were unblemished and the paint on the walls wasn’t chipping or bubbling.  Off to the left was a sliding door separating the kitchen off and, again, everything there was ancient but clean and seemingly functional; a two burner gas stove, yellowing cabinets and a refrigerator.  Much to her confusion, the kitchen sink had two faucets; one coming out of the wall and another connected to a white metal box on the wall.   _That_ seemed relatively new, but she had no idea why it was there nor what it did.

“Not bad, all things considered,” she murmured.  Maybe she was just desperate, but it was easy to imagine herself living here, blissfully alone.

Iruka just rolled his eyes.

The bathroom was similarly old.  The apartment didn’t have a separate room for the toilet, instead separating it (and the sink) from the bathing area with a sliding glass door.

“Ooh, look, it even has a bathtub,” Kairi remarked.

Next to the stainless steel bathtub was another white metal contraption, this one with one faucet for the bathtub and another connection with a showerhead.  At this point, Kairi had mostly accustomed herself to the lack of shower stalls and long bathtubs like the ones she’d seen back at home, but this was a particular brand of strange.

“Jus’ so you know,” the landlord said, “that heater tends to freeze up a little in the winter, so you’ll have to pour hot water from the sink or whatever over it to get it started.”

Oohhh.  So that’s what the white thing was.

“A bathtub?  You’re in one of the worst neighborhoods in town and you’re happy about a bathtub?  It’s not even a nice bathtub,” hissed Iruka.  The landlord didn’t hear him, or just didn’t care, but Iruka moved over to make the conversation a little more private.

“I care about the little things in life, okay?”

“And I care about your safety!  You could get mugged, or worse in a place like this!”

Kairi sighed.  This is why she desperately needed to move out.  “Iruka, I’m not going to get mugged.  I know you’re a mother hen, but when I say I can defend myself, I mean it.”  

Before the accident, her team was training to take their third star exam; they had been fighting heartless off by the hordes, training against other novice keybearers and even going on more off-world League missions.  There was no way Kairi was going to be done in by a petty thief.  She couldn’t exactly tell Iruka this, however.

“I’m not—”

“Just trust me, ok?”  Kairi turned back to the landlord.  “How much is the rent here again?”

“One thousand _ryo_ a month, including electric and hot water,” the man drawled.

“Right in my budget, how perfect!”

Iruka was glaring at her again.   _Kairi, no._

“I’ll take it!”

 

* * *

 

Meanwhile in the Land of Departure, things were going to shit.

Their team leader, Master Ventus had given them a week’s leave to recover from the accident, but by day three both Riku and Sora were too restless to stay in their dorm.

“Besides,” Sora had said, “what if they need us to go find Kairi?  We need to be in top condition!”  Ever the optimist, Sora tried to keep their morale up as best he could, but it was still hard.  They both felt like they were missing a limb without Kairi around.

Riku nodded, barely able to speak.  “Yeah...”

Clusters of trainees parted around them as they made their way to the training grounds.  Once the boys passed, any kids they passed stopped to watch.  Even kids on the floor above them peeked through windows and over railings to get a glimpse of the two boys who lost their precious teammate.  Close, but not too close of course, lest the bad luck rub off on them.

For young trainees, your team was precious.  That rarely changed with age, but you always felt particularly vulnerable those first few years with them, especially after establishing a delicate rhythm with them.  On average, from establishment to passing their last star exam, teams spent about a decade together.  After a team finished their five-star exam, they’d all become full fledged keybearers, and the team would be disbanded, but the bond always remained.

Riku and Sora had known Kairi even longer.

“She’ll probably chew us out when we find her,” Sora tried to laugh.

“Knowing the League, we’ll deserve it.”

Training Ground C had been their team’s assigned area since they were all inducted as trainees seven years ago.  They hadn’t even made it off world much since their graduation, since Master Ventus was stationed in Land of Departure’s capital, and probably would be for the foreseeable future.  They’d spent countless afternoons in the open air courtyard, Kairi thoroughly trouncing them most of the time and Master Ventus giving pointers.  By the end of most days, they’d end up wrestling like little kids.

Of course they’d end up back where the accident happened.  It was only impulse; they always trained there.  It still hurt.

“You wanna just spar for a while?”

Riku summoned Way to The Dawn by way of an answer; Sora grinned.

They went through the motions for as long as they could, neither really pushing the other.  Riku couldn’t manage much more than blocking Sora’s blows; he didn’t even touch standard magic, let alone his dark powers.  It felt good to be moving again, but there was too much weighing on both of them to really get into it.

Even that got cut short, however.

Professor Hawthorne came out of his classroom looking even more like a ruffled-up hen than usual.  His robes were impeccable as usual, but there was something on edge about his posture; in the way he hurried into the courtyard, ignoring all the young trainees gaping at him.

“What do you two think you’re doing?”  There was a twinge of panic in his voice, like he’s not immune to the superstition surrounding the two boys.  “You’re disrupting my class!”

Sora rose first, and Riku breathed a sigh of relief.  He wasn’t sure if he could talk without crying, or if he would straight-up punch the professor, but neither outcome was positive, so Riku was content to stare at the golden sky for a little longer while Sora sorted things out.

“I’m not sure what the problem is, Professor.  We were just sparring like we normally do,” Sora said, his voice miraculously even.

“You know exactly what the problem is, Fukui-san!  You’re distracting my students away from their lessons!”

“We have a right to be here, Professor.”  Sora stepped closer.  Despite being much taller than the junior keybearer, Professor Hawthorne backs away.  “Just because we’re grieving doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep active.”

“ _Grieving_ aside, Fukui-san,” Hawthorne hissed, “the accident has shaken the entire academy, and your presence is…”

Sora took another step forward, gripping Star-Song brutally, with no signs of dismissing his weapon anytime soon.  “Our presence is what, Professor Hawthorne?”  Every muscle in Sora’s shoulders and back were tense with rage, but his voice was still sweet and even.  

Riku felt proud, if a little turned on.

“Your presence is unwelcome.  Most of the trainees are terrified of the idea of losing a teammate, and the rumors surrounding the two of you right now are disruptive.  If you must train, do it when class isn’t in session.”

Sora raised his keyblade.

Strangely enough, the first thing that went through Riku’s mind was how Star-Song shone in the late afternoon light; the gold filigree illuminated so it looked more like glass than metal, each star glowing.  Sora looked noble like this, their golden boy with a golden keyblade to match.  It would’ve be artful, had he not been threatening one of the academy’s longstanding professors.  Hell, it was still artful; a terrible scene painted in the most gorgeous way possible.

Later, Riku would realize that he wouldn't've cared if Sora had actually followed through.  Even if he had beaten the tar out of Hawthorne, Riku would’ve stood by him.  Riku would’ve been hard pressed to find fault in Sora even if he killed the professor, which was definitely something to confront at a later date, when his head wasn’t such a damn mess.

Of course, it didn’t come to that.  Right in time, Master Ventus came into the courtyard, and stopped Sora in his tracks.  He didn’t even need to summon his own keyblade, yelling, “Sora!  That’s enough,” did the trick.  Star-Song faded away immediately, as did the anger that was holding him up.  Sora fell to his knees in an instant.

Hawthorne didn’t look even slightly guilty.  The professor had been around much, much longer than Master Ven’ had, he had been around to teach Ventus, back when he was a trainee, and knew that he’d be around long after Ventus got himself killed on a foreign world.  In the old professor’s eyes, even Ventus was still a student in need of a good lecture.  “Ventus, I don’t know how you plan on disciplining these _children_ , but be assured that I’ll be consulting the Headmistress about this.  You’ve been far too lenient with your brood,” he sneered, glaring at Sora and Riku in turns, “and things cannot go on like this any longer.”

“Professor,” Master Ventus said, “I understand that you’re upset—”

“ _Upset?_ Your student just tried to attack me!”

“Sora was absolutely out of line, Professor.  It won’t happen again, but I beg of you, please understand where my boys are coming from; Kairi was their dearest friend.  These three have been inseparable since before they entered the academy...”

Professor Hawthorne and Master Ventus continued to go back and forth, but Riku couldn’t understand a word they said.   _Was_ , Ventus said, _Kairi was_.  Like she was dead.  Somehow, Riku managed to pull himself up just enough to get to Sora, and pull him close.  Without anger or optimism to keep him sturdy, Riku’s teammate quivered with tamped-down sobs, finally giving in to the grief of Kairi’s disappearance.  

Kairi was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used [this](http://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/36083/how-well-thought-out-are-the-economics-in-narutoverse-konoha-and-other-ninja-vi) to guide my worldbuilding as far as economics go. I wanted Kairi to be able to survive on a crappy bookstore job, where she's probably gonna be working part time. I was looking at some japanese apartment tour videos, and I found [this](https://youtu.be/RecwwxAUrYI) video for an apartment for 9,000 yen, or roughly 80 usd, and I thought that something like that would've been great for Kairi. You can kind of use that to guide your imagination in future chapters, if you like.
> 
> Kairi makes roughly 6000 ryo a month, at this point.
> 
> There's gonna be a lot more worldbuilding next chapter, and hopefully Sakura will come in!
> 
> Thank you for reading :)


	4. Meanwhile in LoD, Shit Gets Worse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kairi meets some more Konoha locals, and Riku and Sora's world is shaken up a little more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm bad at writing chapter titles. My apologies.

Right before sunrise, when the autumn air still filled her apartment with a bright chill, someone knocked on Kairi’s door.  A swift three raps, then, “Ueda-san.  You’ve been summoned to appear before the Hokage.”

Kairi, still bundled up on her futon, groaned.  Apparently, it was loud enough for her visitor to hear, because he scolded her in the most distant way possible, calling, “you have ten minutes.”

Grumbling the entire time, Kairi crawled out of bed and put on her only set of clothes, hoping they didn’t smell yet.  She had gotten an advance from Yuu for the down payment on her apartment, but after that she had money for food only.  The little fund for anything other than not starving was growing at a glacial pace.

Quickly she checked herself in the mirror and tied her hair up in a tight bun.  Anything to look remotely put together.

There was another knock on the door.

“Coming!”

* * *

 They had been waiting for hours.

At some point during their long walk of shame up to the dean’s office in Polaris Academy’s highest tower, Sora had pressed himself against Riku’s side, tangling their fingers together.  Riku squeezed Sora’s hand; whatever happened next, they'd go through it together.

Eventually they found themselves sharing a single chair outside the dean's office.  Not that there wasn’t a perfectly useable extra chair, it was just that every time some clamorous yell made its way past the closed doors, Sora did his damnedest to climb further into Riku’s lap.  Without making a big show that he was in Riku’s lap of course.  That would be improper.

Suddenly a memory of Kairi’s voice came to him, of her best Hawthorne impression.  

_And that would be what, Miss Ueda?  That’s right!  Improper!_ Kairi would posture herself just right, sticking out her chest and tipping her face up so she looked down at everyone disdainfully.  And somehow she would get the tone just right, despite her her voice being the exact opposite of Hawthorne’s.

It hurt, but the memory was too funny not to laugh.

“You ok?”  Riku leaned back so he could see Sora’s face.  He was crying again, but there was a smile on his face.

“I just remembered,” Sora said, sniffling, “Kairi’s Hawthorne impression.  Like, remember the time when we were all piled on top of each other outside in the courtyard?  After we came back from the Land of Dragons?”

“When you and Kairi were determined to crush me to death by sitting on me?”

Sora tucked his head back into Riku’s chest and nodded.  “That was fun…”  He turned his face up again, his eyes alive with emotion.  “And then, Professor Hawthorne caught us goofing off.  And for some reason he decided to chew Kairi out instead of all three of us, which really pissed me off!  But she managed to get his speech word for word after, which was pretty funny…”

Before Riku could respond, the door to the dean’s office creaked open.  Master Ventus, looking morose, walked out.  “I’ll just take a moment with my students,” he called behind him, before the door closed again.  “I’ve really tried, but it seems I don’t have your teammate’s gift of gab…”

“What happened?”  Riku asked.

“You’ve both been suspended indefinitely, pending a new keyblade master for your team, and an investigation into Riku’s dark powers.  Hawthorne made a case that I wasn’t doing my job properly, and Dean Callister sided with him.  Until we can figure out the cause of that outburst, they don’t want to risk anyone else by sending Riku into combat.  And even if Sora wanted to join another team on missions— _and I know you’d never even think of it, let me finish Sora_ —Hawthorne had you benched for spite for at least a month.”

Sora jumped off Riku.  “Wait, back up—what do you mean a new Master for our team?”

“I… I’ve been reassigned.  I’m sorry.”

For a moment, everything was silent.  Sora stared at Ventus, wide eyed and unbelieving, then, as his words sunk in, his expression crumbled.  “W-what do you mean?  They can’t just do that, we need you.  You’re our teacher!  How could they?”

Ventus sighed.  “They have the right to so; Dean Callister is an official member of the House of Kings.”

“Which is…?”

“Sora.  The House of Kings is one of the League’s three governing bodies...  How _in the realms_ did you pass civics?”

“Kairi.” Sora and Riku reply in unison.

“Ah.”  That explained it quite well.  “Well, all you need to know is that Dean Callister has reassigned me to Daybreak Town.  She’s still deciding who will mind you when I leave.”

“So they’re basically tearing us apart,” said Riku.

“Yes, that’s the jist of it.  Now come with me, and look as sad as you possibly can.  I want to try one last thing.”

* * * 

The Hokage, Kairi learned, was the village’s leader.  A battle hardened old man named Sarutobi Hiruzen, who had the undying respect of every ninja in Konoha.  And very recently, according to the rumor mill (by way of Iruka, the angel), a grandfather.

His office had a desk, but it was empty.  A low table and cushions were set up in the middle of the room, like the old style rooms in the Land of Departure.  The Hokage was sitting on the cushion furthest from the entrance, watching the door and smoking a pipe, still as stone.  He was by far the oldest person she had seen so far, especially out of the varying ninja she had met; they all had the lifespans of warriors, but somehow this man had managed to live long enough to get all wrinkly.  

“Hokage-sama, we’ve brought the girl as requested.”

“Thank you, Hayate.  That will be all.”

Her escort made a swift bow, and dissapeared in a plume of white smoke.

“Come child, sit.”

Kairi knelt on the cushion opposite him.  It was a threadbare old thing, but it still managed to keep her knees off the wooden floor, so she settled down and sat on her heels.  The table before her was also quite old; an exquisitely lacquered table like the antiques her grandmother used to collect so long ago.  

“Is that a _go_ set?” Kairi pointed to the wooden board on the table.

“It is.  Do you know how to play?”

Kairi nodded.  “My grandmother taught me to play, when I was young.  But I haven’t played in a long time.  I’m probably rusty.”

“Why don’t we play a game while we talk?  The stones are in that closet, if you would.”

“Sure.”  As she returned with the game pieces, she asked, “if you don’t mind me asking… Why did you call me here?”

“Is it enough to just want to meet our newest visitor?”  The Hokage made the first move, placing a white stone near the center of the board.  “I’d like to ensure that you feel welcome here.  You did come from quite far away.”

“T-thank you.”  Kairi placed her own piece on the board edge closest to her.  “I miss it a lot, my home world.  Especially my team.  They’re like my family, and now everything is just… Gone.  My whole life.  I want to go home.”

Her eyes burned from holding back tears.  She hadn’t given herself the privilege of breaking down yet, but the pressure was building.  Everything was too much.

“Sometimes, right when I’m waking up, I’m half expecting to wake up in my dorm, like this is all a really vivid dream.  But, I always come-to in the apartment I’m renting.  I try not to be too disappointed, you know?  Konoha is really lovely, and being able to deal with the unexpected is the mark of a good keybearer, so I just gotta tough it out…”

“It’s one thing to bear grief gracefully,” said the Hokage, “and another to deny that you’re grieving.  You must acknowledge that you’ve been dealt a blow, so you can heal properly.”

“Grieve over what though?  This—this is just a bump in the road.  My team will come for me before I know it.  I just have to be patient.”  If she said it with enough conviction, maybe the days would pass quicker.  Maybe, the next time someone knocked on her apartment door, it would be Sora and Riku.

The Hokage decided to just drop the subject and make his next move.  “Very well.  So you are indeed from another world?”

“I am.”

“And surely you understand that you can’t share this information with the villagers.”

“I do.”

“However, as Hokage, I’m privy to all sorts of information that ordinary citizens can’t know about.  A little more won’t be hard for me to keep secret, so if you ever need anything, or just need to talk about your home freely, just ask.”

* * *

 When the boys followed their teacher into the dean’s office, Hawthorne was already waiting for them, looking smug.  Somewhere along the the way in their education, the three of them had made an enemy of the stuffy old coot, and, as children do, decided that their best course of action was to make his life a living hell.  Sure, it had earned them detentions, cleaning duty in the mess hall and the like, but that had never been a real problem for them.

That was before.  Now, they had the dean of Polaris Academy to contend with: Dean Miranda Callister.  A fierce crone rumored to be older than the mountains surrounding Polaris; she certainly looked the part. But her looks were nothing compared to her reputation.  Dean Callister ruled Polaris with an iron fist, keeping even the haughtiest, most talented keybearers in line.  Just the threat of seeing her was enough to make any student or trainee behave.

“Your team has been a never-ending headache since the moment they graduated the academy!”  Hawthorne was all puffed up, pacing in front of Dean Callister’s desk as he decried every last infraction that their team had ever accomplished.  Hearing them all back to back like that was quite impressive; it was hard not to grin whenever Hawthorne mentioned a particularly fun exploit, but Sora and Riku did their best to look properly chastened.  “And _you_ ” —the professor whipped around to snarl at Ventus—  “Mr. Stormsong, have done nothing but encourage these hoodlums to act like the kings and queen of this academy, answering only to themselves!  It has gone on long enough!”

To be fair, Kairi was actually royalty, and any strutting they might’ve done was absolutely appropriate.  They did take their…liberties, but they weren’t tyrants.  Any influence they had was always used towards mischief in good faith.

“Professor, please try to be reasonable; my team has been through an enormous amount of stress these past few days.  Berating them for every little misstep they’ve made since they were trainees is just rubbing salt in the wounds!”

“I’ve known these three longer than you ever will, Mr. Stormsong,” he sniffed.  “They’re self-serving little miscreants, and the League would be blessed to be rid of them.”

“If you insist on our master by his last name,” Riku interjected, “then at the very least get his title right.  It’s _Master_ Stormsong to you.”

Professor Hawthorne turned nearly purple with rage.  “Mr. Matsushita—”

“I implore you to reconsider, Dean Callister.  My students need me more than ever right now.  Even if they need to be taken off of active duty, please, keep them in my care.  They’ve known Kairi since before they enrolled as students here.  Asking them not to lash out only three days after the accident that ripped her away from them…  It’s not only impossible, it’s cruel.”

Dean Callister was silent.  She peered at all of them in turn, evaluating them carefully from a rubric that only she knew.  Finally, she spoke, “Fukui, Matsushita, do you have anything you’d like to add?”

Riku stepped forward.  “Kairi is an integral part of this team, Dean Callister.  Without her, it feels like a part of my heart is missing, and I'm sure Sora and Master Ventus feel the same way.  I know we haven't been the ideal team over the years, but we’re devoted to the League and doing good by it.  None of us here are asking for carte blanche, but please don't take our mentor away just because Sora reacted poorly under extreme duress.  We just want to see our teammate home safe.”

“Very well.  You and Fukui will accompany Master Ventus to his new station in Daybreak Town.  You will both be barred from combat and missions until your dark powers can be reassessed, and you must remain on-world at all times.  Dismissed.”

On the way out, Sora and Ventus stared at Riku with a mixture of confusion and wonder.  Neither of them could remember the last time Riku had said that much at once.  Long speeches, to quote Riku, were a waste of air and time.

Once they were alone once more, Sora asked him.  “How did you know what to say?  It was quite the speech…”

“I just asked myself, ‘what would Kairi say?’ and then said that.  Easy.” 

* * *

 After a surprisingly friendly conversation with the Hokage, and grabbing a pork bun for breakfast, Kairi returned to her job in the late morning.  Yuu hadn’t come in, but it didn’t seem like anyone had even tried to visit.  The place was dead empty, so Kairi kicked her feet up on the register and leafed through a history book she had dug up.  All through morning she read about something called the Third Great Shinobi War, astonished to imagine that they had three of these enormously destructive conflicts, and only a handful of customers appeared.

Work at Konoha Booksellers was always slow; the only people who ever came in were perverts or students—mostly students, thank the stars—and with nothing pressing to do as noon approached, Kairi found herself becoming increasingly stir crazy.  She had already cleaned the place twice: a quick once over with an aero spell to get the topmost layers, and then another pass with a vacuum cleaner, a cloth, and a bottle of lemon oil.  The place was so spotless that when Yuu walked in the next morning, she immediately turned around and exited, thinking she had the wrong shop.  It was not enough, however, to earn Kairi an early raise... But her budget was airtight enough that Kairi didn’t really have room to fret.

After that she took to pacing the rows, organizing the untouched books to the best of her ability, but there wasn’t much to actually organize.  Whoever put the books on the shelves decades ago had done it right the first time around.

So when she heard a commotion outside in the late afternoon, nothing short of death, or maybe, a swarm of heartless, was going to stop her from snooping.  It was almost closing time anyway; nobody was going to come looking for a book at ten-till-five.  Kairi locked up as quickly as she could, and followed her ears to the scuffle.

“Leave me alone,” a little girl cried out.  Her distress was clear; if it was friendly teasing, it had gone too far, but Kairi couldn’t help but feel that she wasn’t going to find anything friendly.  “I just want to go home…”

“ _I just wanna go home_ ,” a boy’s voice mocked, and at least two more boys laughed along with him.  They were nearby enough to scare the birds roosting on the roof of the bookstore.

She poked her head around the corner.  Three young boys were looming over an even younger girl with bright pink hair; none of them noticed Kairi.

“If you want to go home so bad, why don’t you just fight us?  You want to be a kunoichi, don’t you?”

_Kunoichi…_ The word sounded familiar, but Kairi hadn’t the slightest idea what it meant.

The girl’s voice was soft, but full of conviction.  “I do.  I want to be a ninja.”

“Then act like it!  You’re never gonna get anywhere if you keep running home like a baby.”

“But…”

“We’re just trying to help you,” one boy sneered, “the academy will never take you if you don’t toughen up!”

“Awww, are you crying?  You really are a baby, aren’t you!”

Just as Kairi stepped out from behind the building to get a better look, the little girl flung herself at her nearest bully, the leader, by the looks of it, screeching like a wild animal.  The little beast managed to get a good few thrashings in before the other two boys gathered their wits and threw her back down to the ground; she scratched a bloody line from his temple to his eye, and he was doubled over from a swift kick to the stomach.

The little girl struggled against the boys holding her, but she couldn’t get free, even as the third boy approached, rock in hand.

“Why you little—” The boy was wheezing, she noted with satisfaction.  “I’ll show you…”

“Oi.”  Kairi summoned her keyblade in a flash, not that she’d ever beat up a bunch of kids.  The intimidation factor was really all she needed.  Back at home, she used to throw her weight around constantly, using her title of princess wherever she thought it would get her something.  After a while, that stopped working, but by then she had enough power of her own by way of magic to just keep operating as she always had.  Between Riku, Sora and her, they were unstoppable, and honestly, Polaris Academy’s worst nightmare.

“Three against one seems a little unfair,” she said.

The biggest boy dropped his rock, looking pale.  “H-hey, sis!  It’s not what it looks like…”

“Don’t ‘hey-sis’ me.  I know this is exactly what it looks like.  Let her go,” she said, her voice deadly calm.

At once, all three boys scrambled to leave, tripping over their own feet to get away faster.

“You okay, kid?”

The girl nodded.  She watched Kairi with tear filled eyes carefully, staring mostly at the keyblade that was still in Kairi’s hand.

“Oh.  I didn’t mean to scare you with this—” Kairi dismissed her weapon and the girl’s eyes lit up in wonder— “there.”  She knelt slowly beside the girl.  “What’s your name?”

“Haruno Sakura.”  She scooted herself a little closer, still watching Kairi’s every move.  “You’re that girl.  The one who appeared out of nowhere, right?”

“Yeah, that’s me…  Rumors sure do travel fast here.  My name’s Ueda Kairi, but Kairi is fine, if you’d like.”

Sakura’s eyes lit up.  “Kairi-san,” she said, as if testing it out.  Judging by Sakura’s grin, the name worked just fine.

“Now, let’s get you home.  Can you get up?”

Sakura rose, dusting off her sundress.  Her shins were bloody with scratches, but other than that, the little girl was no worse for wear.

“Maybe we should get you patched up first,” Kairi murmured, “c’mon.  The bookstore has a bathroom we can use to wash your scrapes.”

* * *

 “So,” Kairi starts, once she has Sakura settled on the counter, next to the running sink, “those boys bother you a lot?”  

“Yeah.  Don’t tell anyone though!  Everybody already thinks I’m weak…”

Kairi nodded, mostly to herself.  She knew that feeling well, but she never had to beat someone up to get past it.  Most of the arguments stopped when she summoned her keyblade, and even if someone did have a problem after that, they were smart enough to not mention it around her.  “Clearly, you’re not weak,” she said.  “If it had just been the one boy, you would’ve won.  They mentioned something about _kunoichi_ , what did that mean?”

“Daichi and the others don’t think I’ll make it into the Ninja Academy.  They want me to give up,” Sakura muttered.  “I’m just a big crybaby…”

“This is gonna sting a little.”  Kairi gingerly poured water over Sakura’s wounds, loosening most of the dirt.  “There’s nothing wrong with crying, you know.  Before you can talk, you cry.  It’s a person’s very first way of calling for help.  But I think I understand what you mean.  You want to be strong so you can enter this academy, and those boys think you’re not tough enough.”

“Mhm.”  Sakura’s face was flushed with anger; it didn’t seem like she was noticing her scrapes at all.

When the scrapes were all clean of dirt, Kairi summoned her keyblade again.  This time around, Sakura stared at the weapon with sheer curiosity, rather than caution.  Kairi still had her magic-heavy Waterlily keychain attached, and Sakura reached out to touch the pale lily that made up the upper teeth of the blade.  It was warm to the touch, imbued with the magic Kairi shared with it, and Sakura gasped.

“Wanna see something cool?”

Sakura nodded eagerly.  “What is that?”

“This is my keyblade.  It’s a weapon that only I can use, but it can be used for more than just hurting people.  Watch.”  Kairi cast a mild cure spell, and Sakura’s scrapes knitted up in a bath of warm light.

“That’s so cool!  It doesn't hurt even a little!”

“Well that’s the idea,” Kairi replied, “behind a cure spell.  I use magic like this when I'm injured while fighting so I can keep going, so it needs to get rid of the pain, not just the injury.”

“Is a spell like a jutsu?”  Sakura slid off the bathroom counter.  “There are plenty of healing jutsu out there--I read about them at the library.”

“I’m probably not the best person to ask about that—I have no idea what a jutsu is to begin with—but my best guess is yes.  Do you think you’d be able to describe jutsu to me, Sakura?”

“Jutsu is the signature art of the ninja,” Sakura recited, “it comes in three major forms: ninjutsu taijutsu, and genjutsu.  All jutsu require the use of chakra, a mixture of physical and spiritual energy that can then be channeled into different jutsu.  There's a lot of information on jutsu in the library, like the history of it, and diagrams of how chakra flows through us.  Sometimes Mama takes me there and lets me read as much as I want!”

“Well, aren't you the little scholar!  Very nice.  So let me just see if I understand…  Jutsu is special abilities powered by the user’s internal energy?”

“Mm-hm!  You have to train for a really long time to do jutsu.  That’s why I need to go to the academy.”

“I see.  Have you talked to your family about this?”

Sakura shook her head.  “I don't think Mama wants to talk about it.  When I ask, she talks about other things or says she’s busy.”

Kairi understood.  Sakura’s mother was probably worried sick; her precious daughter comes home with all manner of bruises and scrapes just for wanting to go to this Ninja Academy, who knew what would happen if she actually started attending?  Nobody had done that for Kairi when she decided to start her keybearer training.  Sure, plenty of stuffed-shirts fussed over the impropriety of a Princess of Heart training to use magic and fight in battles, but in the end, nobody ever gave a second glance to her well being.

However, in Kairi’s eyes, it was Sakura’s right to become a ninja, just like it was hers to become a keybearer.

“Well, let’s go home and talk to your mama, ok?  I’ll see if I can convince her for you.”

Sakura’s smile lit up her whole face.  “Really?  You’ll do that?”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Yay!  You’re the best, Kairi-san!”  Sakura only came up to her hip, but did her best to give her legs a crushing hug.

“Alright, let’s get you home.  If we don’t bring you home on time, your mama won’t even listen to what have to say.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been working hard on this one, and I know the ending is a little abrupt, but I'd rather save what I have planned for next chapter. There are some flashbacks and more stuff with Sakura in the works, as well as some more worldbuilding, if I can stick it in without making it too exposition-y. I have a lot of ideas of where I want this to go, and I'm still kind of working them all together into one cohesive story, so as always, updates on this bad boy are a little on the slow side.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!


	5. Meanwhile in Konoha, Things Get Better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sora and Riku plan a daring escape while Kairi has her first home-cooked meal in weeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It seems like I'm always more active when I have class... This is a problem I should fix. I'm sorry this chapter took so long though! I had a good portion done months ago, but the end of this chapter took me a while to figure out.
> 
> Anyhow, I present to you another chapter in Kairi's adventure!

All the way to Sakura’s house, the little girl kept a tight grip on Kairi’s pinky.  They strolled down the dirt roads, following Sakura’s lead and chatting all the while.  Despite her best intentions, Kairi found herself becoming attached to the little one holding her hand; she didn’t interact much with any of the younger students at Polaris, and she never had a younger sibling, but she always enjoyed being a role model when she could.  Sakura was endearingly serious, and sharp for a five year old.

“So, Sakura, what’s your favorite food?  Do you like sweets?”  They had got to trading questions; Kairi would ask simple things about Sakura’s life, her likes and hopes and dreams, and in exchange, Sakura got to ask questions about magic and Kairi’s keyblade.

Sakura scrunched her nose up in thought, before shaking her head.  “No, I don’t like sweets very much, except for dango...  I like sour and salty things.  Like umeboshi. Or pickled radish!”  She contemplated what to ask next.  She had so many questions all piled up in her head, so it was hard to pick just one.  “Your keyblade…  Are you the only one who has one?”

“No.  My team members have them too.  Lots of people do, where I’m from.  My turn.  What is your favorite place to visit here in Konoha?”

“Hmmm…  If we’re talking about the places I’m allowed to go, it’s the library,” Sakura said.

Kairi was already proud.  Going to places she wasn’t supposed to was practically Kairi’s defining trait.  “And places you’re not allowed?”

“Hey!  It’s my turn to ask!”

“Right, I’m sorry.  Ask away.”

“Do all keyblades look like yours?  Because it doesn’t really look like a key.”

For a moment, Kairi wondered if she was giving away too much information, but then she realized that she didn’t really care.  “No, keyblades look all different.  My friend Sora’s keyblade looked a lot more like a key, originally.  Keyblades come in all shapes and sizes, and we can actually change their appearances by attaching different keychains to the handle.”  She summoned Waterlily to show Sakura the gilded blossom attached to the end of her weapon.

She could’ve sworn she had another keychain somewhere in her pockets when the accident happened…  “So,” she said as she fished through the numerous pockets in her training clothes, “where’s your favorite place to go where you’re not allowed to go?”

“Oh, that’s easy!”  

Kairi didn’t realize it was possible to get attached to someone so quickly, but when she saw Sakura’s mischievous little grin, the only thought that ran through her head was,  _ ‘Oh, I like her.  She’s going places.’ _

“The village training grounds.  I like to watch people train, especially when they practice ninjutsu.  It’s really fun to watch!  But sometimes, I get caught, and they tell Mama, and then I have to stay at home all day…”  Sakura tugged on Kairi’s pinky to make her turn left onto a secluded, tree lined street.

“I guess you just have to work on not getting caught then…  Ah!  There it is!”  She lifted up her other keychain up triumphantly.

“Oooh…  What’s that one?”

“This is the one I call White Lion,” said Kairi.  “An old friend gave it to me.  Watch.”  She knelt down so Sakura had a proper view, clipped on her White Lion keychain, and removed Waterlily’s chain.  In a burst of effervescent light, her keyblade transformed into a simple, double edged blade with a glittering fleur-de-lis for teeth.  Along the opposite edge of the blade, leaping lions were carved into the metal, and a matching set of lions fighting made a sturdy handguard.  White Lion was significantly heavier, and it was a welcome difference from the featherweight delicacy of Waterlily.

Sure, Kairi might’ve been a magic specialist, but sometimes you just want to hit something.  And White Lion wasn’t half bad with magic when it came right down to it, easily making it Kairi’s favorite keychain for getting shit done.

“That is so cool,” Sakura murmured, hypnotized.

“Now, where do we go next, Sakura?”

“Oh, right!  This way—my house is on the corner!”  She pulled Kairi all the way down the road (although Kairi had a feeling she’d go anywhere Sakura asked, pulling or not) to a small four story apartment complex with a rust-red roof and pale yellow walls.  There was a small garden in the front, and it looked like the building had a backyard as well, with a little stone path leading to a chicken wire fence gate in the back.  It wasn’t nearly as old as her own apartment building, but it definitely wasn’t new.

The side of the building closest to them was covered in honeysuckle, still in bloom despite the cooler weather, and it filled the air with sweet scent.  The whole lot seemed to have a sort of controlled chaos about it, where the plants weren’t quite wild and the lawn not quite clean, but the place wasn’t left to ruin; no, it felt lived-in, like this was the precise way the building was meant to be.

Kairi followed Sakura to the front entrance, not quite hiding, but trying to make herself appear a little smaller, as if it would help her stand out less.  It didn’t.  Immediately, an older man working in the garden turned to stare at the two of them.

“I’m home, Kurosawa-san,” Sakura said, bowing deeply.  “Is Mama home yet?”

“Welcome home, Sakura-chan.  Your mother got home not too long ago.  Who’s your guest there?”  Kurosawa turned his full attention to Kairi.  Behind his half-moon glasses, his gaze was piercing.  He was sizing her up, with something more aggressive than fear filling his frail body with tension.  Almost as if he were preparing to strike.

Kairi was wise enough to know to avoid that end at all costs; old people always fought dirty.

She imitated Sakura’s bow, hoping she was giving the man the proper respect.  “I’m Ueda Kairi, sir.  Sakura…”  Kairi racked her brains for the best honorific to use for her young guide; only old, rural areas in Land of Departure still used traditional suffixes, and prior to the accident, she had been cooped up in Polaris for years.  She decided more polite was her best option. “Sakura-san was having trouble near the bookstore today, so I thought it was best to walk her home.”

She wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to meet his unflinching stare, but she made eye contact and gave him a polite smile. 

Kairi must’ve passed muster, because after a few seconds, Kurosawa gave her a quick nod.  “Very good, Ueda-san.  Sakura-chan has been having a lot of problems with those boys lately.  I’m glad to know you’re keeping an eye out for her.”  ‘ _ You  _ will _ be keeping an eye on her,’  _ was unsaid, but no less understood.

“Of course.”

“Now go on in, Sakura-chan.  You don’t want to keep your mother waiting, do you?”

 

* * *

 

“I know it sounds crazy,” Sora said, keeping quiet despite being in the privacy of their shared dorm, “but I think it’s the only way.”

It didn’t just sound crazy, it  _ was  _ crazy.  “You’re proposing  _ defecting _ , Sora.  That’s career suicide, even if we succeed.”  Riku didn’t however, reject the idea outright.  He nodded at Sora to continue.

“Look, it’s been over a week, and they haven’t once brought either of us in to help with the search.  I don’t even think they’ve started looking!  And now, they just want to pack us off to Daybreak Town with Master Ven’ without even a word about Kairi!  How are they supposed to investigate when we’re a world away?”

“And every day they spend dragging their feet is another day that could be Kairi’s last,” Riku added.

“I mean, we both know she’s  _ more _ than capable of taking care of herself, but what if the world she’s on has nothing edible at all?  Or is filled to the bursting with heartless?  What if she fell on her way there and she’s critically injured?  They’re acting like this isn’t an emergency!  Why are they acting don’t they care, Riku?”  Sora’s voice cracked painfully, inching into the well suppressed fear he’d been nursing since they watched Kairi fall into a dark corridor.  “They have to care…  She’s all we’ve got…”

Riku rose.  He wrapped his arms around Sora, trying to to piece together a plan in his mind.  He was their ‘plan guy’.  If he couldn’t find a way out of this and back into Kairi’s arms, then no one could.

And there was no way in hell he was giving up now.  

“Sora.  You  _ know _ they don’t care.  They never cared about us, and we always gave them hell back.  They won’t look for her.  Not really.”

Sora pressed his forehead to Riku’s.  “Exactly.  That’s we need to start looking now.  No more military circlejerks, no more Professor Hawthorne or Dean Callister—we need to hop through a dark corridor or use the lanes-between and  _ find her _ .  Because no one else will.”

At the mere mention of dark corridors, Riku’s blood froze in his veins with fear.  Whatever was wrong with his dark magic, he didn’t want to go near it for a long, long while.  “What if something goes wrong?”

“It can’t be any worse than what has already happened…”  Sora shrugged, but he didn't stop thinking aloud.  “Master Ventus mentioned something about going off established lanes-between the other day; it’s tough but possible.  We might not need to touch your dark magic.  At least, not until you’re ready.”

“Alright.  We’ll leave from the main gate in three days.  Just pack everything you might need.  And I’ll see if I can get some of Kairi’s stuff from her room...”

  
  


* * *

 

Sakura’s apartment was a tidy little duplex on the first floor, with a sliding glass door out to the back garden, which was slightly more open than its cluttered cousin out front.  Everything in the home was done up in shades of warm yellows and browns, and nothing in the house looked very new; the varnish on the bookshelves and tables had been worn down to a soft, muted shine, and the sofa in the living room was threadbare and sunken in; but it was a welcoming sort of worn-down.  It felt loved.

There were photos everywhere.  Most of them were of Sakura at various ages, sometimes with what looked to be her parents, but mostly just her.  There was one particularly...well adorned photo sitting on the end table in the hall; a photo of Sakura in a pale green yukata nestled in an unusually extravagant frame.  

There was a word for the little lowered area where Kairi took off her shoes, but like most of the similarities Konoha shared with the rural parts of her home, she couldn’t remember what it was called.  At the very least, she remembered most of her manners, slipping on the extra pair of slippers Sakura gave to her, and thanked her for welcoming her into her home.

“I’m home!”  Sakura called out, as she came inside.  Her own slippers were adorned with little bows, but seemed to barely fit her at all.

Above the ruckus coming from the kitchen, a woman called, “welcome home, Sakura!”

Sakura snatched up Kairi’s wrist and pulled her along the hall, straight to the kitchen.  “Mama, look who I found!”

A petite young woman looked up from her cooking.  The resemblance to her daughter was striking—clear green eyes, wide forehead, tiny nose—but even more shocking was her age.  She didn’t look to be older to twenty five, maybe twenty seven.  Kairi’s own mother was quite young when she had Kairi, but that was standard royal necessity…  She couldn’t imagine what would cause a woman to have a child that young by choice.

It was none of her business, Kairi decided, and she bowed just as deeply as she did for Kurosawa-san.  “I’m Ueda Kairi, ma’am.  It’s a pleasure to meet you.” 

“Oh!  My, you sure are a polite young lady…”  She tucked a few strands of pale-red hair behind her ear.  It was her only visible difference from her daugher; where Sakura’s hair was delicate pink like her namesake, her hair was much darker, but still pale, as if it had faded from bright red long ago.  “I’m Sakura’s mother, Haruno Naoko.  Please call me Naoko.  To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Some boys were causing Sakura trouble outside where I work, so I decided to walk her home.”

“Can she stay for dinner, Mama?  Please?”

“Did you ask your new friend if she  _ wanted  _ to stay for dinner?  Or did you just pull her all the way here without asking?”

Kairi replied immediately, “oh don’t worry—”

“She said that she was gonna convince you to let me go to the ninja academy!”  Sakura exclaimed.  She didn't quite jump for joy, but she did bounce up and down on the balls of her feet, her eyes glittering.

“Oh did she?”  Now that was a motherly look if Kairi ever saw one; an  _ angry _ motherly look.  “Well, why don't you go help out Kurosawa-san in the garden while Ueda-san and I talk?  I’ll call you when it’s time to have dinner.”

Sakura’s keen eyes watched both of them for a moment.  She knew exactly what they were going to talk about, and not in the way she wanted.

“Go on, Sakura.  A little sunlight and dirt is good for you,” Kairi encouraged.

“...okay.”

 

* * *

 

Sora eagerly got to packing, letting his worried ‘what-if’s guide him.  While he stuffed as much as he could into his duffel, Riku set out to retrieve Kairi’s things.  Most importantly, her armor, but also her clothes, and maybe some of her extra keychains.  Kairi might’ve been good at winging it, but she didn’t have any supplies at all, wherever she was.  She had her keyblade and her training clothes, that was it; a well packed bag for Kairi was essential, especially if they were going to have a hard time getting back to Polaris.

Now, he just needed to find a way into her room.

Generally speaking, boys were only allowed in the North Sun dorm during limited visiting hours, but with no one to visit, none of the guards would think of letting him in.  Worse yet, it would be all too easy for the rumors to spread that he was visiting Kairi’s room without anyone around.  And the last thing he needed was for some nosy rookie to go telling Professor Hawthorne what he’s up to.  Then, he and Sora weren't going anywhere.

At best, they might get suspensions from active duty, but more likely, they’d be stripped of their keybearer certifications and sent to prison.  That was the general punishment for deserting.  There were a few cases where execution was the decided punishment, but most of those were during the war.  A court martial wouldn’t see Sora and Riku as horrible traitors, probably.

For a while, he just sat under Kairi’s window, trying to figure out how to get into a fourth story dorm room without getting caught by security.  The little alcove between two marble columns was the perfect place to hide out while he mulled things over; he had used it countless times before, waiting for Kairi to jump down, or for her to throw down a ladder.

Now, alone, all he could do was remember.

One time, Sora was so eager to get his good-night kiss that he literally climbed over Riku’s back to get to the window.  Only a well timed aero spell, courtesy of Kairi, was enough to save the two of them from broken necks, and it didn't manage to save all the bread and cheese they stuffed into their backpacks.  It wasn't the worst loss, Kairi had brought home mochi from a sweets shop in town, and all their kisses tasted sweet like red beans until they feel asleep.

As much as Riku liked kissing— _ and boy did he _ —he was pretty sure he liked blowing raspberries on Kairi’s stomach at least as much.  Kisses were great, but Kairi’s delighted little squeal whenever she was tickled was one of the best noises he ever heard.  She’d giggle and squirm and eventually roll them over, only to remember that Riku wasn't ticklish at all.  He'd let her do her worst, but nothing ever worked on him.  But the view was the best, with her grinning down at him, so it was no skin off his back.

And then there were naps.

They actually had a list of the top napping spots on campus.  A meticulously curated list based on hours and hours of in-the-field research, of course.  This very alcove got an honorable mention, for being just comfortable enough for them all to squeeze together when they didn't have the energy to climb back up to Kairi’s room after curfew.  Sora liked being in the middle, tucked under Riku’s chin, with Kairi at his back.

Sora fell asleep first, most of the time, but Kairi was always last.  More than once he’d awoke to Kairi watching them fondly, drowsy but not quite dozing.  She would never say it, but he knew she had a hard time sleeping, period.  She worked herself to the bone, just so she could fall asleep without trouble.

Something crunched beside him.  He almost thought it was the stone pillar, cracking under his barely suppressed dark powers, but when he opened his eyes, it was just Aspen, a student at Polaris’ magic conservatory.  They had failed to summon a keyblade, once upon a time.

“I didn't mean to wake you,” they murmured, “I didn't realize anyone else used this spot anymore.”  They turned to leave, but Riku called out.

“Wait.  You still live in this dorm, right?”

Aspen winced.  “Sadly, yeah.  They’re finally giving me a separate room though.  Why?”

“You have to promise not to tell anyone, first.”

“Wait—what exactly am I risking here?  The last thing I need this semester is to be on Hawthorne's bad side.  He’s my professor for magical ethics.”

“If anyone catches you, it’s all on me anyway, so just blame me.  But you seriously can’t tell anyone.”

Aspen thought for a moment, fiddling with the end of their braid.  “What’s in it for me?”

Riku thought for a moment.  “What classes are you taking this semester?”

“Ethics, but you already knew that…  Combat three, field medicine and magic, and summoning one.  Oh, and an independent study on animated constructs.”

“I still have all my notes for combat three and summoning.  They’re all yours, if you want them.  And I’ll see if Sora can lend you his field medicine notes, but no promises.  As for animated constructs, go downtown and ask for Geppetto, he’s probably one of the best mages in the business.  Tell him I sent you.”

“Deal.  So what do you need me to do?”

“I need to get into Kairi’s room.  I have a key, but I can't get past the guard.  I need you to go into her room and throw down the rope ladder that’s under the window.”  Riku threw them the key.

“Got it.  I’d give you a time frame, but if I'm caught you’re gonna be screwed whether you look for me or not.”

Riku nodded.  “Godspeed, Aspen.”

 

* * *

 

“Come help me cook, Ueda-san.”  Naoko’s voice was calm and quiet, almost tired.

She came to her side.  Being non-threatening was probably impossible at this point, but at least she could be helpful.  

“Please, call me Kairi.  What do you need?”  

“Take that knife,” she pointed to a chef’s knife sitting by the sink, “and chop the roots off of those enoki mushrooms, and then separate them and rinse them in the sink.”

“Sure thing.”  Kairi picked up the knife gingerly, but before she could get to cutting, Naoko had come back over, grabbing her hand.

“No, no, no!  Haven't you ever held a kitchen knife before?  You need to keep your fingers out of the way so you don’t cut them off, silly girl.”

She flushed.  “I've never actually cooked at all before.  I never needed to.”  Kairi admitted.  Knives were good for stabbing things, in her book.  Neither of her teammates were much better, but at least Riku could fry an egg.

Naoko sighed.  “You shinobi are all the same; terrified of needles and none of you know the first thing about cooking…”

 

“How do you know—”

“That you're a shinobi?”

“Actually I was going to ask about the needle thing.  I never told anyone about that!”

She patted Kairi on the shoulder, then grabbed the knife from her.  “All warriors are scared of needles.  It’s a universal fact.  Now, watch me.  You want to keep your fingertips curled under, that way they’re not too close to the blade.”  She made one smooth cut across the ends of the mushrooms, and threw the roots in a spackle bucket under the sink.  “See?  Think you’ve got it?”

“Yeah, I think so.” She said.  “And then,” —she separates the mushrooms with the tips of her fingers— “like that?  So they’re all loose?”

“Perfect.  Now do the others.  Mushroom pancakes are one of Sakura’s favorites, so I want extras for her lunch.”

For a while, they cooked in silence; holding a very sharp knife took up most of Kairi’s concentration, and Naoko seemed to be using the time to gather her thoughts.  Or maybe she was trying to calm down?  Kairi couldn’t tell with her back turned to her.

“I, ah, didn’t actually promise Sakura anything, just so you know.  I just said I’d try to convince you.”  Rinsing off mushrooms was a great way to distract herself from the awkward admission that she was stepping all over Naoko’s parental rights.  “But I understand if you just want me to drop it.  You know your daughter best.”

“You can stop rinsing those now, you’re going to drown them.”

“Oh!”  She hurried to turn off the water, dropping the colander into the sink.  “Sorry, I’ve ah—”

“Never done this before?  It’s alright, you’re learning.  Just spread them out on those paper towels, there you go…”  Naoko took over from there, laying another paper towel on top of them.  “Don’t press too hard, but try and get all the moisture out, okay?”

“Sure thing.  I guess this means we’re not going to talk about it?”

“No—wait, yes—I mean, yes, we’re going to talk about it.”  She sighed.  “I do know my daughter best, that’s for sure.  But in this case, that just means I know just how badly she wants to go to the academy.”

Kairi turned to look at Naoko.  She was bent over, braced against the counter, looking down.  Every muscle in her back was tense.  “Is there any reason in particular you don’t want her to go?”

“Fear, mostly.  This town was practically built with the blood of shinobi; everywhere you turn, there’s memorials for those we have lost.  We all carry the burden, even though it hits harder for some.  Every day I see people come into the ER, coming back from missions.  I see how hard this life is.  To think that my little baby wants to jump headlong into it…  I’m just not strong enough to handle it.  Not all on my own like this.”

Naoko busied herself with grabbing a bowl, and tossing the mushrooms in with some flour and vegetables, adding in some egg at the last minute so it all stuck together.  It gave Kairi a little time to gather her thoughts, under the guise of studiously learning how to make mushroom pancakes.

_ There’s something elegant about the way she moves _ , Kairi thought,  _ it’s very...precise. _

“I understand.  Where I’m from, it’s technically peacetime, but there are still quite a few soldiers alive from the last war we fought.  Sometimes, they remember, and you just watch their eyes go completely blank, and there’s nothing you can do to help them,”  Kairi said.  She only had one shot to say this the right way.  

“But, have you ever thought that you’re her reason for wanting to join in?  Because just by meeting you, I can tell that you’ve got quite a bit of strength behind you.  Maybe she just wants to be strong like you.”

“That’s an interesting concept…  Thank you.”

“Now show me how to make these pancakes you’re talking about.  They sound pretty tasty.”

 

* * *

 

Not five minutes later, the old rope ladder rolled down from Kairi’s window.  When Riku reached the top, Aspen was still there, making no sign that they were going to leave leave anytime soon.

“I should probably let you know now that I’m almost positive they’re giving me Kairi’s room.  There aren’t that many singles in these dorms, and nobody else has moved out yet.”

Riku didn’t respond; he had to focus.  The longer he spent in Kairi’s dorm, the higher the chance he could get caught.  No time to worry about how quckly the League erased Kairi from Polaris, from existence itself.  

“I’m sorry, that was uncalled for,” they said.

“It’s fine.”  

Riku opened up the duffel he had brought along, and laid it on Kairi’s bed.  It was crisp; she always made her bed before she left her room.  Cleaning, she said, was therapeutic, and whenever she was particularly peeved, she’d march right into their dorm with a bucket of cleaning supplies and would go to town, ranting about whatever was bothering her (Hawthorne, probably) that time.  The memory made him smile, but it also made his heart ache.

The rest of Kairi’s room was similarly pristine.  She was particular like that.  Her armor was right where it was supposed to be, sitting on its stand on her dresser.  It would’ve looked like she had just gone down to town to pick up some food, if it weren’t for the thinnest layer of dust starting to cover everything.  Kairi would’ve never stood for that.

As he plucked it off the dresser, wrapped it in one of her shirts, and placed it in the bottom of his bag, Aspen hovered near him, hands fluttering at their sides.

“Can I help you at all?  I won’t tell anyone what you’re doing, I promise.  Notes or not, you deserve your privacy right now.”  They started playing with their braid again, just to keep their hands busy.

“Thank you, but this is really a one person job…”  He grabbed a handful her favorite shirts and used them to cushion Kairi’s armor even further.  “You can leave if you want.”

“But what about the ladder?  I mean the door locks from the inside, but you can’t leave the ladder there…”

“I was just going to roll it up and jump down,” he said.

Aspen stared at him for a moment.  “I can give you a whole list of reasons why that’s a shit idea.”

“Yeah, I honestly didn’t think that through.”

  
  


* * *

 

Kairi was much better at cooking things on the stove than using a knife, and the rest of the meal preparation went quite smoothly.  Naoko had made most of the side dishes ahead of time, so all she had to do was broil the mackerel.  Kairi had oohed and aahed over the little fish oven in the stove for a solid five minutes before Naoko finally got tired of her and shooed Kairi away to start plating dinner.

Sakura must’ve smelled the fish cooking, because she tumbled in from the front yard not long after, covered in soil.

“Oh no you don't, I just vacuumed in here!  Go back outside and rinse off,” Naoko cried from the kitchen.  “Kairi, go make sure she gets all the dirt off.  There’s a sink out back with soap.”  

“Sure thing!”  She hopped off to Sakura’s aid, who was waiting outside the door with a pout.

The two of them followed the little paved path back to the rear garden.  Sakura went slowly, brushing her fingers against every plant she could reach.  She named almost all of them, which was definitely better than how Kairi was categorizing them all: short bush with pom-poms, very tall flower tree, very small flower tree, and honeysuckle.  That one, at least, she knew.

The back garden was a tiny wild paradise.  More honeysuckle tangled over a rickety old swing set, like fragrant netting.  The garden plots were useable but only barely, tomatoes springing up on top of carrots on top of strawberries.  There was a single path through the middle, made of more concrete paving stones.  Each one had little handprints in it, decorated with little glass gems.

Pressed up against the rear of the house were washtubs filled with flowers.  Each one was labeled with little popsicle sticks, but they were too tangled to tell one plant from the next.  There were a couple of toys piled next to the metal washtubs; a little plastic truck, and a child sized gardening kit, complete with a little pink trowel and rake.

“Are these yours?”  Kairi asked.

“Yeah!  Sometimes Kurosawa-san helps me plant things, so we got these big buckets from the junkyard.  Mama’s garden is over there,” she said, pointing to the plots by the swing set.  “It’s more fun when Mama is here, but the hospital is always super busy.”

Naoko rapped on the kitchen window, loudly.  “Don’t forget to make her use the nail brush!”  

“You got it!”  Kairi called.  “You heard your mama, let’s get those hands clean for supper.  The sooner you get ready, the sooner you can have mushroom pancakes…”

“Really?”

“Really.  Now up you go, make sure there’s nothing under your nails…”

It took two tries to get Sakura’s hands perfectly clean, scrubbed pink after all was said and done.  Instead of shaking out her clothes to get rid of all the dirt, Kairi just cast a gentle aero spell, and all of it blew away on the wind.

“That’s so cool,” Sakura murmured.

“Thanks!  C’mon, I'm sure you're hungry by now.”

The two made their way back to the apartment, Sakura skipping stones as she went.  Every so often, she’d pause and look back, as if to make sure Kairi was still there.

“Go on, I’m right behind you.”

 

* * *

 

“So, ah,” Aspen said, “you really love her, don’t you?”  They kept hovering around the room, too nervous to stay in any one spot.  Occasionally, they reached up, as if to wipe some dust off of a shelf, or to inspect one of the many photographs that Kairi had lying around, but always at the last minute, they’d freeze, and Aspen’s hands would drop back down to their sides.

“Yeah.”

“It’s just…  I’ve always wondered what it would be like, to have bonds like that.  You know?  You and Kairi and Sora, you three always seem so happy together.”  They paused at a framed photo of the three of them; a selfie from last year’s comet festival.  Riku was in the middle, with Kairi and Sora kissing his cheeks.  Even with the flash washing them out, Riku’s blush was incandescent.  “Sometimes I saw your team and wondered, what’s it feel like; to have someone to go to the ends of the world for?”

Riku stared at the photo with glassy eyes.  “I don’t think I’d do a very good job of explaining it.  Ask Kairi when we bring her back.”

“I look forward to it.”

“And Aspen, when we come back, if you’re feeling lonely, come see us. Nobody should be alone, in a place like this.”

He finished packing Kairi’s bag.  She didn’t have many good keychains left in her dorm, but he put them in a side pocket anyway, just in case.  More importantly, he had her armor, and plenty of clothes, with room for potions and ethers when it came time to raid the alchemists’ stockroom.

“Hey, wait here for a second, I have something for you.”  Aspen dashed out of the dorm, and came back a few minutes later with a keychain clutched in their hand.  “My sister gave this to me when I first came to Polaris.  Keep it safe, but use it.  It’s just gathering dust with me.”

“Thank you.  I’ll use it well.”

 

* * *

 

Dinner was delicious.  It was the first good meal Kairi had eaten in a long time; with her shoestring budget and lackluster cooking skills, all she ate was instant ramen, along with frozen dumplings and any other cheap treats she could find.  This was real food, nourishing food, and without even thinking she went back for seconds, then thirds.

“I’m glad to see you liked dinner!”

“I haven’t had a home cooked meal since I got here,” Kairi said, “this was a very welcome change.  Thank you.”

“Well, if you’d like to come back soon, I’m sure Sakura would love to see you again.  It’s not hard to make an extra plate every now and then.”

Sakura exclaims, “yeah!  You should come for dinner every night!  You can teach me how to kick butt!”

“Well I have to say that’s up to your mother.”  Kairi turns to Naoko.  “However, if you need a babysitter, I’d be happy to be paid in food…”

“Oh, that’s not necesary at all.  Our neighbor is more than happy to watch Sakura.  However, I do have something to talk with you about.”  Naoko turned to her daughter.  “Sakura, why don’t you get ready for bathtime?”

“But-!”

“Ah, ah, ah…  Young lady, you need to get ready for bed, and that means a bath.  Kairi and I need to talk grown-up to grown-up.  Go.”

Sakura huffed, but got up from the dinner table wordlessly, and marched herself upstairs.

Kairi inclined her head.  “What do you need from  _ me _ ?”

Naoko took a deep breath, then sighed.  “If Sakura is to enroll at the academy, I want to make sure she’s prepared.  Many of classmates will come from powerful ninja families, ones who have trained their children from birth to be ninja.  Sakura doesn’t have that advantage.”

“But, you’re hoping that she’ll have me to back her up instead.  Wait, does that mean my terrible speech convinced you?”  

“Yes, and yes, sort of.  I’ve known for a while that Sakura would want this.  I know you’ve only just met my daughter, but if you want to, she could use a role model like you.  Someone to have her back, to teach her how to be strong, not just my kind of strong, but your kind of strong.  How to stand her ground.”

“From what I saw today, she’s already got the basics,” she said.

Naoko glared at Kairi.  “What do you mean?”

“Ah.  Right,” Kairi said sheepishly, “she may have gotten herself into a fight outside my job.  There were three boys, who were giving her a hard time about joining the academy.  I was locking up when I saw Sakura just launch herself at the three of them, kicking and screaming.  She got them pretty good, before they ganged up on her.  That’s when I stepped in.”

She sighed.  “Of course.  And I’m seriously considering letting her into more of this...”

That wasn’t where this conversation was supposed to go.  “Hey, you’re listening to your daughter.  She wants this so much that she’s willing to fight for it.  And if it makes you feel any better, I was about her age, when I started training.”

“And what did  _ your _ parents do?”

Kairi paused.  In truth, she barely remembered them.  And out of all of her family, she remembered her grandmother the most, not her parents.  If they had lived though, she would’ve never become a keybearer.

She tapped out a rhythm on her knee.  “They passed away before I joined up.  I’d like to think they’d be proud of me, but I don’t remember them enough to really know.”  Maybe her grandmother would’ve been proud, but probably not anyone else, now that she thought about it.

“I’m so sorry...”  She put a hand on Kairi’s shoulder.  It was so warm; Kairi could feel it bleeding through her shirt.  “I had no idea.”

“Don’t worry, that was a long time ago.  I made my own family, after a while.”

Her heart ached; thanks to Sakura, she hadn’t thought about Sora and Riku all day, but she couldn’t hold back that dam forever.  Knowing that she wouldn’t wake up next to them…  That they were some unknown stretch away, maybe weeks, maybe months from seeing her again…

“I love them so much,” she choked, “they’re my whole world.  After my parents died, they saved me from myself.  I was so lonely, and they just bulldozed right into my life, without a care.  We grew up together, because of that, and we joined the military together, and fought together… I don’t feel whole, without them.”

Before she knew it, Naoko was hugging her.  When was the last time someone hugged her?  Naoko was cradling her head with one hand, stroking her hair like she was a child, awaking from a nightmare.

For just a moment, Kairi squeezed her eyes shut and wished.  But when she opened her eyes, she was still in the Haruno’s apartment.

Naoko was still holding her, at least.

“I wish I could tell you that everything is going to get better.  That you’re going to see your family again.  But, I think I’d be doing a great disservice to you by lying.  I don’t know what’s going to happen next.”  She pulled away.  Not far, just far enough to look Kairi in the eyes.  “All I can tell you is that in times like these, you shouldn’t be alone.  Come over as much as you like.  I’m sure Sakura would be delighted to see you, and anyone who keeps my daughter out of trouble is a friend of mine.”

“I wouldn’t want to impose…”

“Nonsense.  Remember, you’re doing me a favor.  If Sakura goes to the academy, you’re going to be tutoring her.”

That got a laugh out of her.

“It would be my honor, Naoko-san.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One day, I think I'd like to go back and edit all of this. I know that if I don't post these right away, I'll never post them at all, but once this whole work is done, I want to give it a huge revamp.
> 
> Just a few notes, just so you know where I'm coming from...
> 
> So, Kairi, and everyone in the series really, speaks both Japanese and English, but for the most part, Japanese is the common language of the worlds. It's Land of Departure's native tongue, and English is Radiant Garden. The history behind this will probably come up in later chapters. 
> 
> Naoko is an OC. I know that Sakura's parents are mentioned eventually in canon, but for a lot of different reasons I decided that Sakura growing up under a single mother worked especially well for this story. I'm also a very big fan of alternative family structures, and the idea of Mr. Kurosawa (who has a husband that you will also eventually meet) being this grandfather caretaker to Sakura was very appealing to me.


	6. Once Upon a Dark and Stormy Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On a rainy night, multiple plans are set in motion. Kairi makes impulsive decisions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's starting for me to get easier to keep powering through writer's block and churning out writing. I think that I didn't do enough finished fic as a kid, so I didn't have any practice keeping with my plots and creating a full story arc. I think for once I might actually be hitting a good stride.
> 
> Anyhow, expect some more League of Realms related content in the next few weeks! My friend dragged me into bleach and I'm 60 something episodes into this hellhole, and goddamn do I want to see Kairi in a shihakushō, so I'm making an excuse to write basically that. I've also got another chapter of Shadows on the way, and I've got an inkling of a plot for some more stuff with Kairi and Sakura and some Riku and Sora stuff, so keep your eyes peeled for more over spring break.

“So, I snagged this book from the archives about old lanes between.  Apparently the first keybearers used them to settle all the realms, but over time they fell into disuse…”  Sora waved around his handwritten notes; he was too nervous to take a book he would never be able to return.  It had taken him hours to get his penmanship legible.

“Do you think we’ll be able to use them?” Riku asked.  

He couldn't stop pacing, body primed with nervous energy.  At any moment, someone was going to barge in and uncover their plot and drag them off to the brig, or so he thought.  Maybe Aspen had ratted him out after all…

Sora laid back on his bed.  “I don’t know! You asked for a way to reach unknown worlds without dark corridors, so I brought you a way to reach unknown worlds without dark corridors.  We can’t afford to be picky.”

“Right.”

Outside, lightning flashed bright down to the horizon, close enough that thunder rumbled in almost immediately after.  The rain was coming down in sheets. They had excellent visual cover despite the discomfort; they couldn’tve asked for better escape weather.

The two slipped out the dorm window and carefully made their way to the world gate, avoiding the well lit pathways around campus; they couldn't afford to be seen, even for a moment.  They took the long way through the gardens on the edge of campus, neither hurrying or dragging their feet; at the very least, getting out of Polaris meant that there would be less memories underfoot.  Even in the rain at midnight, Sora could see him and Kairi play wrestling near the flower beds, splashing through the fountain carelessly, having secret picnics under the ancient weeping willow. There was so much here to remember that it was almost tangible.

At the far end of the gardens was the main world gate; a carved marble archway five stories high with an equally elaborate wooden door inside.  Senior Keybearers were usually strong enough to open a lane-between from anywhere, but Sora and Riku were only two star Juniors, and neither had any experience with opening lanes by hand; they'd either have to take the main gate to get off world, or head all the way into the city to find another gate.

Riku stopped short, and grabbed Sora by the hood of his jacket.

"What's wrong?" Sora whispered.

Riku pointed to a slim figure standing right outside the gate; they were dressed all in black, with a massive trunk at their feet.  Their hair gleamed silver under the lamplight. "Let's wait until they go away, then we'll open the gate again."

For a moment, it seemed sure that the stranger was leaving, they were just taking a moment to gather their strength to drag his luggage, but then, as if the stranger could see through the sheets of rain, they turned to look directly at Sora and Riku.

"Greetings!" The stranger bellowed.  "Are you here to help me with my luggage?"

 

* * *

 

Kairi dreamt of her memories.  Tangles upon tangles of them: some just snapshots, others long chains of what once was.  She tossed and turned, trapped between wanting to wake and never wanting to leave the past.

_She was alone._

_Mama, Papa, Uncle Olin, Bā-chan; everyone was gone.  Miss Aqua had said that some people had probably survived, but nobody in the castle.  She had said Kairi survived because she was the next Princess of Heart, that the Light was protecting her._

_Kairi didn’t feel protected at all.  Not without Papa. Not without Bā-chan._

_The guards tried to feed her, they left her soup and bread and green things, and the youngest one even snuck in sweets for her, but it felt like her mouth was all stopped up.  Even swallowing her own spit made her sick._

_Everyone got fussier and fussier as the days went by, but they still stayed away.  They gave her toys, but no one to play with. Books, but no one to read to her. Nobody would tell her stories, especially not the ones that Bā-chan knew._

_She couldn’t sleep, either.  The moment she started dreaming, she could see the library ceiling crack above her, just about to fall, and she’d wake up shaking and crying._

_Still, nobody came._

_Instead, she tried to keep remembering all the stories Bā-chan told her.  A different one every night. She’d remember them all, forever. For Bā-chan._

Once upon a time, all the worlds were filled with light.  Everyone loved the light _._

_Knock knock._

All the little children grew up happy and safe, because everywhere you went, there was peace.

_Knock knock knock._

_Her concentration faltered._

But as time went on…  As time went on...the people…

_Knock-knock-knock-knock-knock!_

As time went on, people got jealous.  There was a war.

 _Knockknockknock-!_ _Now her focus was good and fried.  And whoever was at the door just kept knocking!_

_“Maybe she’s asleep?”_

_“Or maybe she doesn’t want company, dork.  You’ve probably woken her up with all your knocking too.”_

_Two voices, both boys.  They didn’t sound very old.  About her age, maybe? She didn’t even know there were other kids here._

_“Go away!” She called.  She doesn’t mean it; in fact, the moment she said it, her legs made her get up and march to the door.  It’s a funny feeling, feeling so lonely, but not wanting to see anybody. She doesn’t like it._

_“Aww, come on!  You can’t stay in there forever!”_

_“Sora, enough!”_

_“Please let us in?  We brought cookies!”_

_Kairi’s stomach roars.  It’s been so long since she’s eaten that it hurts; she’s always curled up around her empty tummy.  It’s not long before she opens the door. On the other side, there were two boys._

_They weren't lying, the brown-haired boy really did have a plate full of cookies, and the silver haired boy was balancing three glasses of milk in his arms.  She stared at them for a while, not knowing what to do._

_"I'm Sora," said the brown-haired boy.  He thrust the plate of cookies out in front of him, into Kairi's arms.  "We thought you might be hungry."_

_The other boy huffed.  "Cookies aren't food, Sora._ I, _" he said with smug emphasis, "wanted to make you a sandwich."_

_"Yeah, but he couldn't reach the bread."  Sora laughed. "Can we come in?"_

_Kairi nodded; her mouth was already full of cookies._

_"Wow, your room is so pretty!" Sora stared at the ceiling.  There were stars all over it; whoever used this room last really liked them.  "You have so many toys too! Can we play with them?"_

_"Let her eat first, dummy!  I'm Riku, by the way." The boy was a little taller than Sora, but not by much.  Riku set the glasses of milk down on Kairi's little drawing table, then took the cookies from her and put them in the middle.  "You should eat over here, so you don't get crumbs everywhere."_

_They ate in silence for a little while, then the Royal Guard came back in.  His face was so red it almost looked purple._

_"You two!  Get out of here this instant!"  He grabbed Sora and Riku by the collars of their shirts and lifted them right out of their chairs.  "You have no idea how much trouble you've caused us this time… And breaking into Kairi-hime's room no less…"_

_"Stop!"_

_The guard froze, his hands still on the boys collars.  He probably had never heard her speak before, let alone yell._

_"Leave them alone!  They're my friends!"_

Kairi woke up with tears in her eyes.

She was never going to see Riku and Sora again.  Her eyes stung, but she was all out of tears, so she rose, shaking the predawn chill out of her bones.  She had to go on, for their sake, and for hers.

There was no use going back to sleep, not after a dream like that, so she put on her old training clothes and went for a walk.

It was still the dead of night, and the waning moon was high in the sky, not giving off much light.  Instead, the sky was lit with thick ribbons of stars, and whatever sky-glow was left over this late at night; a few neon lights in the red-light district, the streetlamps.  It was quiet, aside from the wind. Not very many people stayed up late in this neighborhood. Tonight, it was biting; dry gales had been coming in from the north all week, blowing away the last dregs of summer heat and beckoning winter closer.  Kairi pulled her windbreaker tighter, but it did nothing to stop the gusts cutting through her leggings like glass.

At the end of the block, the hound-masked man was waiting for her in silence.  He was standing on top of a streetlamp, perfectly still.

"What?" She asked.  "Never gone for a late-night stroll before?"

More silence.

Stranger than the silence, Kairi couldn't feel him.  It was almost like he was a Nobody, but not. As far as she could _feel_ , Hound had no heart, but he was still connected to the world around him, but even that was hard to see.  It made so she couldn't get any kind of read off him: no facial expressions, no emotions, and of course, no conversation.  

She cupped her hands around her mouth and called, "I'm assuming you have some kind of job to do, and I won't stop you.  I just needed some fresh air."

Kairi made her way to the rooftop of the corner building, not using any magic; the whole village was designed for easy climbing, unlike Polaris.  She jumped from one roof to another, no destination in mind, just thinking, trying not to remember too much. Hound kept up with ease. Sometimes she didn't even see him move, she'd just turn her head and he'd be there.

There was a hypnotic rhythm to her run, and, eventually, she got tired enough to sit still.

She was still a good ways from her apartment, so she just sat on the edge of the roof of what looked to be a grocery store.  When it was quiet like this, it was easy to focus on the rhythm of the world below her, its strong heartbeat.

Hound pointed his sword at her throat before she could even blink. "What are you doing?"  

Kairi scrambled out from under his katana.  "Whoa, whoa, whoa, what're _you_ doing?  I was just meditating, man!  Put the sword down."

"Your chakra was flaring up; what were you planning to do?"

"Nothing!  I was just meditating!  You know, connecting with the heart of your world?  There's gotta be someone in your village who can do this.  Some royalty perhaps?" She muttered, "besides, I have no idea how your 'chakra' works anyway."

"No, there's no one like that," Hound replied, sheathing his katana.  "We don't have royalty here."

"Well it doesn't _have_ to be royalty, that's just where the skill's most common.  Every world has people who connect deeply to its heart; they get special senses because of it.  My family line has the connection, so I can feel the hearts of others, and their connections to each other.  And the world's heart itself, of course. Watch, _and don't stab me_ , 'kay?"

Hound didn't give a reply, but his sword was still sheathed.  Close enough.

Kairi closed her eyes and dove in.  The way down was easy with years of practice, but never quite this intense; the roar of Konoha's heart was young and raging with power.  Its energy filled her ears like the roar of a waterfall, pulling her under. Usually easing her way into her second senses was a slow drift: she'd slowly let go of her bodily senses, and fully immerse herself in her heart senses one by one.  

She'd bring awareness to her metaphysical self: first, her arms and legs, then her ears, and finally, she'd open her eyes to the full brilliance of the soul-plane.  Of course, it wasn't actually it's own plane, it was more like Kairi's own filter, hiding the physical and letting the rest shine bright, but it was the name she had been taught years ago, and it stuck.

This time, she was thrown into her heart sense in a second, the whole world flashing in front of her, separating into colored multiples like a prism.  Everything was grey, except for the hearts around her; civilians' hearts were standard, flickering candlelights while shinobi hearts shone bright and steady, in varying colors.  From here, it was easy to follow along each line, feel the vibration of a singular connection. With just a touch, she could feel out friends from lovers, or gauge the strength of a connection.

She pulled back to take a look at the whole picture.  There was one heart in particular whose connections stretched out far and wide; they had so many it practically looked like a fan, and Kairi could only assume that was the Hokage.  Here, she could see his dedication to the village represented visually, every heart he touched.

"This is a wonderful place," she murmured.  Her mouth felt like cotton when she was under like this, but she continued, "you're all dedicated to each other deeply, and it shows."

Over on the west side of the city, Sakura was sleeping soundly.  Her heart's pale-green light was steady and bright, like a true fighter.  She had few connections, but they were all strong for someone so young, one for her mother, two for the Kurosawas, a thinner one for another neighbor in her building Kairi didn't recognize.

And, one for Kairi herself.

It was so thin, barely a silk strand.  Sakura had somehow, in a single day, decided that Kairi was worth this gift, worth her precious trust.  It brought tears to her eyes, and she knew that she'd do everything in her power to protect their bond, to keep Sakura's trust.

The girl was fighting tooth and nail for her dreams, but she couldn't do it alone.  From what Kairi could tell, the deck was stacked against girls like her; she wasn't from a prestigious ninja family, she didn't have any hidden bloodline skills, just her determination.  She'd have to learn a lot, and fast, if she wanted to catch up to the dozens of students who'd been training since birth.

Kairi could bury herself in helping Sakura, at least until dealing with her feelings became less painful.  No, that wasn't right. To use Sakura as a distraction would be cruel; her heart needed to be in this completely, for Sakura's sake.  It wasn't easy, but it wasn't particularly difficult either; she'd been honored with a wonderful gift, and Kairi was ready to rise to the challenge.  She'd need to learn quite a bit herself if she wanted to be a good teacher, but it was the worthiest cause she'd fought for in a long time.

 _I promise, Sakura,_ Kairi thought, tenderly cupping the bond in her hands, _I'll have your back.  You can always count on me._

She pulled back from her newfound bond with Sakura.  Something was itching at the edge of her senses, beyond the walls of Konoha.  Something dark, creeping along the wilds. She knew that feeling anywhere: heartless.  There were more than one but less than ten, giving her a feeling like ants crawling over her farthest reaching senses.

Carefully, she slid back into her physical body.  There was a moment of disorientation as her physical senses reconnected, her frozen, stinging, wind chapped skin, her dry mouth, her teary eyes.  She shivered; coming out of her heart-senses always felt like coming out of a warm bath and being dumped into the snow.

"Something's coming.  Beyond the gate." She rose, her legs still shaking with cold.  "I think I know what it is. Am I allowed to leave the village?"

"No."

Kairi shrugged.  "Well, it was worth asking."

Then, she ran.

 

* * *

 

"I see!  So you two were being naughty, and I just happened to catch you!  How delightful!" The stranger, a man named Xehanort who claimed to be a 'Professor' handed the boys a mug of tea each, smiling jovially all the while.  After he had spotted them, a guard had found the three of them. Only a quick and bold faced lie from the Professor got the two of them out of trouble, claiming that he was there to visit them specifically and that they had come to help him carry his trunk to his room.

Now in one of the nicer barracks quarters on campus, Sora and Riku sipped tea and dried off as Professor Xehanort unpacked his bags, chattering on about his research.  He was a spindly man, and his hands looked a little like spiders, according to Riku.

"Boys, it really is lucky that I met you when I did.  I think we're in a position to help each other out."

Riku's fingers twitched.  There was just something about this guy that made him want to hit him with his keyblade.  'Help each other out,' who was he kidding? More like he had a captive audience and knew exactly what to do with it.

"Help each other?" Riku asked, barely keeping the incredulity out of his voice.

"Of course!  You're Matsushita Riku, right?"

"Yeah?"

"I was actually looking for you!  You're just the guy I wanted to see.  I've heard so much about your dark powers, and I just had to witness it firsthand!  Why, my dissertation was on dark corridors and four-dimensional space! I've been hearing about your exploits since you graduated Polaris."  He pats Riku on the shoulder. His hand is freezing cold.

"...Exploits."

"Well don't be humble now, my boy!  There hasn't been a true practitioner of dark magic in years, and certainly not one with your gifts."

His face went hot; there was a sick mixture of anger and embarrassment brewing in his gut, threatening to overflow.  Not two weeks ago he ruined his best friend's life, possibly _killed_ her, and now some random 'Professor' wanted to proclaim that he was something special?  No way in hell, buddy. Especially not with that chummy attitude.

The wooden chair screeched across the floor as he stood up.  "I don't have to hear this," Riku hissed.

"Riku, wait."  Sora grabbed his hand.  "I know you're upset, but maybe Professor Xehanort can help?"

"Was it something I said?"  Xehanort bypassed Riku now, putting his cold hand on Sora's shoulder instead.  "I don't mean any harm."

"We had an accident, not that long ago.  Riku's dark powers went wild for some reason, and pulled our teammate into a dark corridor.  The League still hasn't found her yet; they think she's on an uncharted world somewhere."

"They don't think anything," Riku snapped, "they're not bothering to look."

"That too.  They haven't actually started a search party, let alone one with us in it.  They're just sending us to Daybreak Town with Master Ventus without doing anything."

Xehanort's orange-gold eyes flick between the two of them for a moment.  What Riku wouldn't give to have Kairi's heart powers now, to see what's inside his head…

"Is that why you two were headed to the world gate tonight?"

"Yeah."  Riku said.  "We won't abandon her."

A wide grin split Xehanort's face.  "Yes, I think we truly are in positions to help each other, gentlemen."

 

* * *

 

Even at full speed now, pushing herself along with aeroga spells at her feet, Hound kept up easily.  He didn't try to attack her, but had his sword out. Not that she blamed him; she had her keyblade out the moment she got on her feet.  Formally, she wasn't ever taught how to cast spells without her keyblade, and she wasn't about to try for the first time in an emergency.

"What the hell did you see?"  Hound's voice was finally becoming familiar; his voice took on a rough timbre when he was angry.

"It's a little hard to explain," Kairi yelled over the wind, "where I'm from, monsters like this are all I fight.  It's my job. But until now I haven't seen one here in Konoha. I thought, for whatever reason, that you were immune."

"That's not an answer!"

"They're called Heartless.  They're born from the darkness in people's hearts," she explained, "and they're attracted to the hearts of living things.  When they attack, they devour people's hearts." The wall was rather small from their vantage point on top of the buildings, practically useless, all things considered, only three feet across, maybe, three stories tall.  No spikes, no spells that she could see, just a stout barrier of yellowed concrete.

They paused for a moment at the top of the wall, Hound looking into the darkness, Kairi carefully layering protective spell after protective spell.  She still wasn't at peak power yet, not with nothing to fight nor ethers to top up her magic, and after all was said and done, she probably only had three good combat spells left in her.  

 _Better make them stick,_ Kairi thought to herself.

"As in the organ?"

"No.  As in spirit.  Where your chakra comes from, my mana.  Heartless consume the very cores of people.  Their bodies sometimes remain intact, if the heartless didn't physically get their claws into them, but they're just living corpses then.  They can't eat on their own, they can't see. My weapon is specifically designed to kill them." She held her keyblade in front of her, her White Lion keychain was still attached, and then cast it away.  "Do me a favor and watch my back."

She knelt, and dipped down again into her heart-senses once more.  This time, she followed the flow, letting the world's heart throw her straight into the deep end.  Now closer to the heartless, there was a kind of static that reached down to her very bones, a band of darkness splitting the air atom by atom.  It made it hard to breathe, but Kairi persevered. If she could just hold on a little longer…

There.  Nine heartless right in front of the main gate, dogpiled on one another.

"Aren't you supposed to have guards at your main gate," she slurred.  Returning to her body was worse this time around, her muscles ached with the darkness that followed her heart, her tongue heavy and metallic with residual dark magic.

"There's always someone, even in the middle of the night."

Kairi took off, not wasting another word.  They ran along the wall silently, Hound trailing behind her by a few feet.  His footsteps were completely silent, she noticed. Whatever training he'd had turned the man practically into a ghost, no recognizable features of his own, just a mask and a weapon.  He was, Kairi realized, just a weapon.

Leaping down from the wall, she put the thought out of her mind.  The same could be said of her; Kairi too, was raised for war. Strip everything away, and there were no essential differences between her and Hound, not really.

The heartless were attracted to her keyblade like magnets, their birdlike heads swivelling to take her in.  There was a moment of peace as they processed who she was, and more importantly, what she had in her hand. When it broke, the heartless scrambled over themselves to get to her.  The start-stop-halting-twitching way heartless moved always disturbed Kairi, it was if they were the furthest thing from living creatures, and their every movement broadcast it.

They were ungainly creatures; Kairi had never seen heartless like these before, with long kinked necks attached to birdcage chests, like a demented child's plaything.  Their wings were attached directly to their spine, and ended in three wicked claws instead of feathers. When they moved, their joints screeched, metal grinding on metal.  There was a man, underneath all the heartless, barely breathing. Kairi couldn't feel him at all.

"Go get help," Kairi said; her voice was giving out.  She had never seen someone lose their heart before, not up close and personal, the wrongness of it all took the breath from her lungs.

"Are you crazy?  These things will tear you apart!"  Another heartless, the runt of the first dogpile and last on line to hit Kairi, took its opportunity and leapt at Hound, only to be swiftly shot down by a Blizzara to the chest.

"Isn't there a phone or something you could use?  Just call somebody, if you're that worried about my wellbeing.  Then, when I go down, you can jump in and get killed too!" Another heartless tried it's best to get to her, but she caught it in the beak with her keyblade and threw it into the next one in line.  With each swing, White Lion fed the kinetic energy back to her as mana, not enough to give her another spell, not by a long shot, but it was nice to have the insurance nonetheless; if she used all three spells, she wouldn't be toeing the line of mana depletion.  And the rush it gave her was always welcome in a fight.

Another heartless had broken away from the group, but it didn't circle around to attack either of them.  Creaking and clanking, it turned and ran the other way, into the darkened woods. There was a faint glow emanating from its chest, but Kairi couldn't make it out.

"Where the hell is that one going?" Hound called.  He had a phone pressed between his ear and his shoulder; he had left his hands free to take potshots at the remaining heartless with kunai.  "It's carrying something… Something with chakra."

Kairi charged straight through the center of the pack, swinging her keyblade wildly.  It would be easier to fight them separately. "I don't know! They usually don't do that unless someone is controlling them, but I didn't sense any people out here…  And how can _you_ see what it was carrying?"

"Hello, yes?  This is the main gate.  No, not Hideyoshi, he's down, it's Black Ops.  We need medics and backup, _now_."  Kairi could barely hear Hound, he had somehow gotten himself on the other side of the gate, where the phone was.  "To answer your question, Ueda, I simply have great eyesight."

Now scattered, the heartless went for whoever was closest; two of them scrambled for the wall,  flapping their wings jerkily to get airborne, and the other three kept their eyes on her. They had their wings wide open like a swan would, preparing to charge.

"Hound!"  She called.  "There's two coming your way, headed for the village!  You'll probably have better luck with mana—sorry—chakra based attacks, I don't know if your weapons are strong enough!"

"Copy that."  Hound flickered out of sight for a moment, only to reappear high above the wall.  He was doing something with his hands, Kairi could tell it was deliberate, but from far away it was hard to discern specifics.  He was still close enough to feel him, just a little, as his mana gathered in the air around his hands.

"Fire-style: fireball jutsu."  Fire bloomed in front of him, consuming the two heartless fluttering up the wall.  The whole area was lit up like it was daylight, spreading her field of vision into the woods, where the other heartless was still fleeing.

With every second wasted, the one that ran got further and further away, carrying with it what Kairi could only guess was that man's heart.  It must be some kind of snack for later, but that was good news for her; his heart wasn't truly gone, yet.

She had to hurry; there was no time to fight them one by one in melee with that man's heart in danger.  Gathering the last of her mana, she raised her keyblade high and fired off Thundaga. All three went down in a burst of pale yellow sparks.

"I'm going after the last one.  Keep your comrade safe!"

 

* * *

 

The boys didn't leave that night, he made sure of it.

Xehanort ushered them back to their rooms with promises of seeing their friend as soon as he could convince the League on their behalf.  Of course he wasn't completely lying; Matsushita Riku wasn't nearly his only interest on that team, and in order to get to the princess, he needed to help them find her, but he needed time.  Riku didn't trust him yet.

Neither did the League for that matter; Xehanort knew he'd been their last resort in studying the darkness.  His methods were admittedly unorthodox, but in his eye, he was the only one to ever get results. While more… _polished_ scholars equivocated over the nature of dark magic, writing treatises on it's hypothetical nature, Xehanort had gotten his hands dirty and earned himself concrete proof on how the darkness worked; how it spread, how it could be harnessed.  With the proper control, it would revolutionize the war against heartless forever, it could revolutionize the whole system as it was today.

Xehanort took his time walking back to his quarters.  It was a wonderful night, even with the rain, no one around to disturb him, no one around to watch and judge him.  It was an occupational hazard, having people judge him nonstop, but he didn't have to like it. The worlds were filled with tiny minds, waiting for their moment to strike him down, and it was his responsibility as a visionary to rise above them.  They'd all get their just deserts, someday.

The rain cleansed him.  It'd been so long since he'd been outside, let alone seen rain and lightning.  His skin felt hypersensitive, as the rain sluiced down his back, down his arms.  It surely wasn't that cold out, but his long stint in his lab left him left him with teeth rattling shivers, such a delightful change in sensation…  He needed to get out more.

Polaris was a beautiful place, even in the dark.  He had worked here decades ago, under Ansem the Wise, back when his mentor had done real work.  His studies on the heart were the basis for all serious studies in his field, but the old geezer had decided late in life that his studies were ethically flawed; they had been Ansem's biggest regret, before he died.

His last years at Polaris, Xehanort managed to hide his mentor's death from the greater scientific community, publishing his studies in Ansem's name, going to symposiums in his stead.  When he'd been found out, he was shunned, his contract with Polaris terminated.

It was only their problem child, Riku, that made Polaris and the League as a whole change their tune.

Nonetheless, Xehanort came when summoned.  He was never one to look a gift horse in the mouth.  

And this certainly was a gift.

 

* * *

 

Kairi raced through the woods, following the faint, fluttering light of the heart caged within the heartless.  Hound's fireball had already gone out, plunging her back into darkness; her eyes were so unadjusted that she couldn't look at the heartless head-on, it'd fade from her sight, instead keeping her head slightly turned, so the light seemed brighter.  She was traveling more by ear now, following the heartless' screeching joints and hoping she didn't slam into a tree in the process.

Outside of meditation, she couldn't easily use her heart sense.  Sure, there were some little passive things that she could see, little tidbits of emotion, a general guess at how many people were nearby, the presence of powerful magic, but she couldn't do an in depth scan of an area without sitting still and diving down.  So when the heartless inevitably led her to a clearing, she had no idea what to make of the figure standing there. He had no heart; if she closed her eyes, it was like he wasn't even there.

The heartless took to the air and landed on the Nobody's outstretched arm.  Kairi threw her keyblade and it struck true, pinning the heartless by the neck to a tree before it dissolved into nothing.  The shinobi's captured heart fell slowly; Kairi ran to catch it, pushing raw mana into her hand to keep it in her palm. Hearts were delicate; it wouldn't do any good to grip it hard.

The Nobody's face was obscured by a black hood, but Kairi could tell they were watching her by the way they moved to face her.

"Tell me, are you Ueda Kairi?  Princess of Radiant Garden?"

"The princess died with her world," Kairi replied cautiously.  It wasn't technically a lie, there could be no princess without a kingdom.

There was a flicker of movement, and suddenly she was pressed against the tree she'd thrown the heartless into.  The Nobody's forearm was locked against her chest. "Is your name not Ueda Kairi?"

"What's it to you?"

The Nobody pushed harder for a moment, but then released her.  "Do not meddle in my affairs again, keybearer. This is your only warning."  

Then, he opened up a dark corridor and disappeared.

For a long moment, Kairi stood alone with only her own confusion and the wind for company.  She had the guard-shinobi's heart safe and sound, that was good, but the whole encounter with the Nobody left her completely off-kilter.  How did they know her name? How did they know about Radiant Garden? Had there been Nobodies created with the death of her home? Had her family been turned into Nobodies?

She didn't want to think about that.

Besides, she didn't have the time to overthink the night's events; she had to return this guy's heart before she ran out of mana.  She was already feeling the drain deep in her guts.

There were more shinobi waiting for her when she returned to the gate.  Hound was standing off to the side, and two shinobi in green vests poured some kind of healing magic through their hands, into their fallen friend.

"I can heal him," she croaked, "I have his heart.  Just give me a second."

Kairi gracelessly flopped to her knees on the other side of the guard.  Now closer to its body, the heart fluttered rapidly in her palm, glowing brighter.  The man's heart was a bright gold, a noble, loving color. Carefully, she charged her hands with more mana, and pushed his heart back into place; his eyes sprung open.

Then, her last dregs of mana spent, Kairi collapsed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm basically turning Kairi into an impulsive shounen anime protagonist, and I have exactly zero regrets.
> 
> For those of you wondering exactly how Kairi's powers work, it'll probably make itself clear as the story progresses, but here's the basic idea: princesses of heart can sense hearts, and all the stuff that's connected to them; seeing as chakra and mana are the same and both powered by the heart, in full meditation Kairi can see pretty fine details of people's chakra, but that means sitting down and meditating, unable to move her body except to speak. It's not particularly combat useful.
> 
> When not in meditation, Kairi can sometimes get bits of emotions off people nearby, have a general sense of how many people are around her for about 10 feet, feel strong bursts of magic, and recognize her heart-bonds from about a mile away. Currently her only big heart-bonds are Sora, Riku and Master Ventus. And eventually Sakura, but hey y'all saw that coming, didn't you?
> 
> Also, I capitalize Heartless when you're speaking about them as a whole, but a specific heartless isn't capitalized.  
> Nobody and Nobodies will always be capitalized, to distinguish them from nobody, a real word used in real speech.  
> Perhaps I'm being a little pedantic, and maybe by next chapter I'll change my mind and simplify my rules, but for now, I like how this looks.


End file.
